If you would, go ahead and turn to Exodus 20. Most people, seems to me, do not think the words they speak matter very much. If they tell a lie to make themselves look better or to make a financial profit or to get out of some kind of trouble, and it works, they think they were clever. If they one-up people, boasting about their accomplishments and superiority and people are impressed, they think it was to their advantage. If they curse someone in a fit of anger, they think they were just venting, no serious harm was done because they weren’t using sticks and stones that break bones.
People are blind to the spiritual realm. They have no idea that God and angels and demons are watching them and listening carefully, and keeping track of the words they speak. And what they can or can’t do with us, has much to do with the words we speak.
A principle taught a few times in the book of Proverbs is that we will all have to eat our words, not necessarily in the sense of admitting what we said was wrong. But Proverbs 18:20, “A man’s stomach will be filled with the fruit of His mouth.” So out of our mouth, we bear good fruit or bad fruit, and eventually we’ll have to eat that fruit. If our words are hurtful, dishonoring, deceitful, manipulative, ungrateful, and so forth, then sooner or later we will experience being hurt, dishonored, deceived, manipulated, unappreciated. But if we bear the good fruit of blessing, honor, encouragement, wise counsel and so forth, we will also get to enjoy eating that good fruit. With the words we speak we are sowing seeds. And down the road we will reap what we sowed, because what happens in this world and in our lives is not just a matter of chance and natural processes. This world is governed by unseen spiritual powers who operate as God allows them to.
Jesus said…
Concerning the significance of our words…
Matthew 12:34-37, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. [our words reveal our hearts, our character and what we have stored up inside ourselves] 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
We will either stand before God forgiven and accepted, or in our guilt and lost forever on the basis of our words. And I believe also the degree of our reward if we’re saved, or the degree of retribution if we’re lost, will also be much determined by the words we spoke.
And of all the matters we may speak of, there is none more important than how we speak of God. In I Samuel 2:30 God says, “Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” And with the words we speak about God, to God, and the way we use references to Him, we honor either Him or it reveals that we take Him lightly. And on that basis we will either be honored or lightly esteemed.
That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning, because we are on number three in our study of the Ten Commandments. In the ESV in Exodus 20:7 it reads, “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.” This command doesn’t just have to do with our speech. It also has to do with how we live, if we speak of God. But it definitely has much application to our speech.
Let’s define a few terms here first.
Definition of a few terms
The Hebrew word translated “take” in “you shall not take the name of the LORD,” was a word that could mean a few different things. It could mean to lift up or to carry or to use. And I don’t believe we should limit this command to any particular one of these definitions. This is about how we lift up or carry or use God’s name.
Then the Hebrew word translated “in vain.” This word is frequently used in the Hebrew scriptures to mean uselessness or emptiness or worthlessness or to no good purpose. We are not to lift up, carry or use God’s name in ways that serve no good purpose.
The word translated “LORD” here is actually God’s proper name in Hebrew. Last Wednesday night we talked a lot about God’s name, so I won’t spend much time on it here. In English letters it’s YHVH or YHWH. And the proper pronunciation of it has been lost over time. Some say Yahweh. Some say Yehovah. Some pronounce it other ways. The word literally means “He-is.” It’s the name God gave himself when He encountered Moses at the burning bush and Moses asked God for His name. God told him, “I am who I am. So you can call me ‘I am.'” Which is Ehyeh in Hebrew. God also said to Moses, “Or you can call Me, ‘He is.'” Yahweh in Hebrew.
Now, later in Jewish history, around the time when they were allowed to return to their land after being exiled by the Babylonians, a custom developed; perhaps somewhat as a safeguard to prevent violating the third commandment. The custom was to just never pronounce the proper name of God at all. It would only be pronounced by the priests in the temple. No God-fearing Jew anywhere else would ever speak it. When they were reading Scripture aloud and came across God’s proper name in the text, they would say Edonai instead, which means Lord. And because of that Jewish tradition the translators of our Bibles have decided to render God’s proper name as just LORD in all capital letters, instead of what it actually is. Now, I believe it’s okay to speak God’s proper name, because you read about people of God all through the OT speaking this name without having any reservations about it. God didn’t seem to have any issue with that as long as they weren’t using it in worthless ways.
Now, let me throw out a question regarding how we’re to apply this commandment?
Would it prevent us from ever violating this commandment if, like the Jews, we just never uttered the word Yahweh or Jehovah?
Is that really a safeguard that would keep us from transgressing this command? Is this just about how we use that one particular name of God? Or is there an ethical principle behind this commandment that we’re to realize that has a much broader application than just how we use that one particular word?
The Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day were notorious for treating God’s commands very legalistically and technically, where they would ignore the main ethical principles that were on God’s heart when He gave the commands. They would just make sure their actions didn’t technically violate the law in the way they interpreted it. They were notorious for seeking to be right with the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law. So for example when it came to swearing oaths, they knew the plain command of God that you shall not swear by the name of the Lord falsely (Leviticus 19:12). So when they wanted to convince someone of something that wasn’t true or make a promise they didn’t really intend to keep, but didn’t want to violate God’s law, what they would do is swear by certain other holy things and not mention the Lord in their oath. They would say, “I swear by heaven I pay you this much” or “I swear by the temple I’ll be there” or “I swear by Jerusalem that I’ll do this and that.” And then they wouldn’t keep their word and they would justify themselves saying they didn’t violate the command because they didn’t swear by the Lord. In Matthew 23 Jesus called them “blind fools” for that sort of thing. He explained to them that when you swear by the temple, you swear by it and by Him who dwells in it. When you swear by heaven, you swear by the throne of God and Him who sits upon it. God’s commands are not to be treated legalistically and technically like they were doing, thinking you can still do the same unethical thing as long as you do it in a way that doesn’t technically violate the law.
And I believe the same goes for the third of the Ten Commandments. There are ethical principles behind this command that have to do with respect for God and God’s reputation. We may never technically use the word Yahweh, but we can be just as disrespectful to God, just as displeasing to His heart and damaging to His reputation by the way we use other references to Him. We can use phrases like ‘God,’ ‘Heavenly Father,’ ‘Jesus,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘Holy Spirit,’ ‘Almighty,’ etc. And if we use those in ways that are worthless, it is just as disrespectful and damaging to God, as if we used His actual name in the Hebrew. So we are to see God’s heart in this commandment and apply it that way.
So I believe there is a broad range of possible speech acts that this commandment is against. I’d like to talk to you briefly about several of them.
One obviously would be…
Perjury
Swearing false oaths. God detests lying by itself. Proverbs 12:22, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord“. But it’s a whole other level of evil when you not only lie, but you bring God into it, calling on Him to witness it.
People have no idea the seriousness of what they are doing when they place one hand on God’s Holy Scriptures and raise the other and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but then lie. They bring a curse upon themselves. The prophet Zechariah in Zechariah 5 tells of a vision God gave him about how God was dealing with those who swear falsely in His name. It reads, “Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” 3 Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. 4 I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.” So he has this vision of those who steal and swear falsely in His name, and this curse comes into their house and settles there and wreaks havoc in their life.
Another similar act that falls under the application of the third commandment is to make…
False vows or promises to God
Wise old Solomon knew the seriousness of this. Let me read you what he said about it from Ecclesiastes 5, he’s giving wise advice for when you go to the house of God, how you should conduct yourself in the house of God. And one of his pieces of advice is this. Ecclesiastes 5:4, “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger [or literally ‘before the angel’] that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?” So this is amazing to me. The picture is of when we make a vow to God, promising to do something or to stop doing something, there is angel present listening and perhaps sort of writing down what you say. And you will be held accountable for keeping your promise.
Sometimes in the songs we sing and prayers we pray, we make promises. Let’s not sing it or say amen, unless we really intend on doing whatever it is. Let’s take seriously what God tells us about the seriousness of our words.
Another application is…
Hypocritical worship
Jesus said of the Scribes and Pharisees of His day, Matthew 15:7, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship Me…‘” In vain do they lift up My name and use My name.
There are multiple times in the Scriptures where God expresses to people that He would rather they not come to church, or worship Him, or pray, or bring offerings, or talk about the Bible; that He finds it insulting and nauseating, when they do that while remaining unwilling to obey Him in their daily life.
The following was written to people who thought they could please God by just faithful temple attendance and offerings and going through the motions of worship, while ignoring Him and His commands the rest of the week. Isaiah 1:11ff, ““What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? 13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” God’s very plain here, we must listen and obey His voice in our daily life, treat people the way He tells us, then our worship will be pleasing to Him. But if we don’t, then He doesn’t want our worship.
Remember His words to the lukewarm church in Laodicea. They still had a church routine. They still worshipped Him. But they were carrying His name in vain, because they had little passion for the Lord. They were still in love with things of the world. They were straddling the fence between the kingdom of Christ and the world, not realizing that Satan owns that fence. The Lord said to the Laodicean church that He would rather they be cold than lukewarm. He would rather they not claim to be Christians or do anything that would give anybody the impression that they are Christians. And part of the reason for that I believe is that lukewarm worldly self-centered Christians do more damage to the cause of Christ than unbelievers. Very few people would point at an atheist and say, “That’s the reason I am not a Christian.” But a lot of people point at worldly selfish Christians and say, “If that’s what a Christian is, I don’t want to be one.”
Other applications of the third commandment…
False prophesy
To claim to be speaking a message you received from God, when the reality is it came from another source. And if you read much of the Scriptures, you don’t need me to tell you that’s one of the biggest no-no’s ever.
Yet I believe it is happening among Christians way more than most realize. I’ve often heard, sometimes from brothers and sisters very close to me, phrases like, “God told Me this or that.” Or God is telling me to do this or say this to you.” Now, I am absolutely convinced God is still speaking to people today. So God may very well have told you something. But I have experienced multiple times, a brother or sister saying “God told me this or that is going to happen,” or “God told me I should do this or that,” and it turned out to be clearly wrong. The brother or sister lacked discernment, to know what was just their own thoughts, what thoughts were from the enemy and what were from God’s Spirit. They were too quick to assume the thoughts they were having were from God. Those kind of things damage people’s faith; they experience false prophecy like that a few times and then they get turned off of any claims of prophecy and doubt that God would talk to us today.
I know some of us use those phrases sometimes, like “God told me,” and I’m not saying you’re wrong. I believe God is speaking to us in various ways. But I want to caution us to be very careful about that. Be totally sure before you say “God told me.” If we are not absolutely sure, then say something more like, “I think God may be showing me that…” Or “I feel like the Lord is telling me…”
Along similar lines, another application of the third commandment is…
False teaching
And I am so thankful for the blood of Jesus that was shed for me and His grace, because I’ve used His name in vain in that way several times before. Not on purpose. But I lacked the humility to think that what I’d been taught and the way I was interpreting things, the way that things made sense to me, could possibly be wrong. I lacked the intimacy with the Lord in which He would have showed me that what I was teaching was wrong.
James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” It’s one thing to be mistaken in your beliefs about God and His ways and His will. But it is an entirely other thing when you teach as fact things about God that you don’t know for sure. So we need to be really careful with our teaching and hold each other accountable, including myself.
And let me say a bit about the application that probably first comes to our minds when we think of the third commandment.
Using references to God as an exclamation point.
Or to just vent some emotion, or calling on God to damn your golf club when you slice a tee shot off into rough. Or flippantly using the phrases “God” or “Oh my God” or “Jesus Christ” or “Lord” or “Good Lord” to express surprise or excitement or disgust or frustration.
The older generation tells me that there was a time in this country when that type of language was generally frowned upon by society. But that is certainly not the case today, is it? Most people think nothing of it. But is that not lifting up or using references to God in vain, in emptiness, in worthlessness, to no good purpose?
Why do we do this in our culture? I mean how come when we’re mad or disgusted at something, we don’t just growl and say “Ah! I really don’t like it when that happens,” and when we’re surprised, just “Whoa! Wow!”? Or I like what a local pastor friend of mine named Larry Lauteret says. Something goes wrong, and he says, “Ah mankind!” or “Oh humanity!” That’s far more appropriate.
Why do we use references to God in these empty ways?
I came across this list of reasons called “Ten Reasons I Swear.” Or you could call it “Ten reasons I use God’s name in vain.”
- It pleases my mother so much.
- It is a fine mark of manliness.
- It proves I have self-control.
- It indicates how clearly my mind operates.
- It makes my conversation so pleasing to everybody.
- It leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind as to my good breeding.
- It impresses people that I have more than ordinary education.
- It is an unmistakable sign of culture and refinement.
- It makes me a very desirable personality among women and children and in respectable society.
- It is my way of honoring God who said, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
In more seriousness, I believe a real reason it is so common in our culture is because our culture is much under the influence of the one the Bible calls “the ruler of this world,” satan. He wants to incorporate things into the culture that are disrespectful and displeasing to God as much as he possibly can.
I’d like to end here with a snippet of a testimony. It’s from a man named Howard Storm. I read it in the book, “Imagine Heaven,” that recounts the testimonies of about 100 people who experienced death for a bit, left their body and experienced the other realms, until they were resuscitated. A frequent feature in people’s experience is a life review, where they get a review of their life in the presence of the Lord and talk about it with Him. In Howard Storm’s testimony he was watching his life review in the presence of Jesus and some angels. Here’s a little piece of his testimony of that experience, “No matter what we watched me do in life, they communicated their deep love for me, even as they expressed their disapproval of things I did… To use vulgar words is only poor taste. To use the name of God in crude or empty ways is an insult to our Creator. I was horrified at how it hurt my heavenly company when we witnessed me blaspheming God and Christ Jesus… Here is the nicest, kindest, most loving being I’ve ever met who, I realized, is my Savior, even my Creator; holding me and supporting me, trying to give me more understanding of my life. And Jesus is a very feeling man. God is a very feeling Creator, and they feel about us…”
That rings true to me. To use the vulgar, four-letter words is poor taste. And it doesn’t commend you as a godly person. You shouldn’t do that. But to speak of God in crude or empty ways is an insult to Him. And He is a very feeling person. We are feeling beings, because He is and He made us in His image. So may we be careful with how we lift up, carry and use the names and titles of God. May we honor Him with our words.
Let’s pray the prayer of Psalm 19:14, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to You, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
-James Williams