Sermon Notes

Please note that these are only notes, not transcripts, and as such are not identical to the recorded sermons. They also contain frequent abbreviations.

Introduction

1. The Third Commandment concerns our attitude.

   1. We worship God alone

   2. We worship God alone as He has commanded us.

   3. We worship God with the proper reverence and awe

2. Do not think that this 3^rd Comm. concerns only, or even mainly, the ungodly world.

   1. We all hear men swearing and cursing and it grieves us (or should grieve us)

   2. But the Commandments must not make Pharisees out of us. I thank men that I am not as other men. I never take God’s name in vain.

   3. We are guilty of taking God’s name in vain, and we must hear this Comm. often, and we must learn out of thankfulness to honor God’s name. Consider …

“HONOURING GOD’S NAME” 

I. The Glorious Name

II. The Proper Use

III. The Wicked Profanation

1. THE GLORIOUS NAME

   1. The holy name of God is the revelation of who God is.

      1. Our names are not like that. They are labels which serve to identify us. In fact, our names do not mean much. God’s name is different.

         1. God’s name is His revelation to us of who He is in His very being. Without His name we could never know Him.

            1. How would we pray if we did not know His name? Try to imagine a prayer in which you do not address God by His name (“God,” “Father,” “Lord,” “Jehovah,” “Almighty,” “Holy One,” etc).

            2. How would we have any fellowship with God unless we knew His name? He would be the unknowable God who dwells in lofty Majesty but we could never know Him.

            3. That God gives Himself a name and that God reveals that name to us is wonderful. It shows us that God is a God of covenant fellowship. He says to us, “This is my name. I want you to know me. And in knowing me you have eternal life.” In fact, the 10 Commandments begin with God’s name, “I AM THE LORD thy God …”

         2. Behind the name of God stands God Himself. The name of God stands for God’s reputation, His fame, His glory. His name has substance. It means something. That cannot be said about our name.

            1. The name God speaks of God’s strength and means “The Mighty One.”

            2. The name Lord speaks of God’s authority and sovereign rule over all things.

            3. The name Holy One speaks of God’s spotless purity, His moral excellence, His abhorrence of all sin and His absolute self-consecration.

            4. The name Jehovah speaks of God’s eternal unchangeableness and His independence and His absolute dependability and faithfulness to His promises.

            5. The name Father speaks of God’s love for His children.

      2. There is more to the name of God, however, than the letters and syllables that make up the words “God,” “Lord,” “Jehovah,” etc. God’s name in Scripture is anything by which He makes Himself known.

         1. Some in their superstition have imagined that simply the word “Jehovah” is God’s name; as long as you reverence that word you have kept this Comm.

            1. In fact, the Jews feared breaking this Commandment so they stopped pronouncing the name Jehovah. They took the letters of word Jehovah and substituted the vowels of the word Lord and in that way avoided the name.

            2. Modern cultists, the JW’s, imagine that the word Jehovah is the only proper name of God; that the Church has lost Jehovah from their Bibles and worship.

            3. But that is not the issue. God’s name is not a word, merely, it is the content of the revelation in the word. For example, you might use the word “God” but if the God you confess is not the almighty sovereign God of Scripture you do not confess the reality of the name God.

         2. The Bible tells us that God’s name is much wider than the few names of God we know (God, Lord, Jehovah, etc). God reveals His name in a variety of ways, and actually puts His name there.

            1. God puts His name on His people, so that they are associated with Him. That is why in Scripture we read of “My people which are called by my name” (I Chron. 7:14). Your children are associated with you. When your children do good, your name is honored; when your children do evil, your name is dishonored. So, when God’s people, with the name Christian, do good, God is praised, but when we do evil, we bring dishonor on God’s name.

            2. In the OT, God’s name was revealed in many ways. For example, the land of Canaan, the city of Jerusalem and the temple in Jerusalem all bore God’s name. To profane any part of God’s worship, to speak evil of God’s city or His temple was to speak evil of His name. And God’s name was dishonored when God’s worship was corrupted.

            3. In Psalm 138:2 we read, “Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy name.”

            4. When we speak of the name of God, we mean His authority, we mean that which represents Him and makes Him known in the world. When a prophet comes in His name, we mean that the one who listens to the prophet listens to God and the one who rejects the prophet rejects God Himself.

      3. Malachi, the last of the OT prophets, brings a charge against Israel. They have not honored the name of God.

         1. Malachi writes to Israel after the return from captivity.

            1. Remember that God’s people had been in Babylon for 70 years but God in His love for Israel had brought a remnant back. He had prospered them so that they rebuilt the temple and the walls of Jerusalem.

            2. But all was not well in post-exilic Israel: the people’s religion was merely outward, a going thru the motions of worship, a cutting of corners.

            3. God brings this indictment against the priests, especially, but also against the people: “O priests, that despise my name” (6), “But ye have profaned it” (12).

         2. The Jews of Malachi’s day did not openly blaspheme the name of God and use it as a vile swearword, but they did despise and profane the name by despising God’s worship.

            1. They offered polluted bread upon altars, substandard beasts as sacrifices.

            2. They had no reverence for the ordinances of God’s worship, all of which pointed them to Christ.

            3. And they sniffed at God’s worship and complained that the worship of God was a weariness. All of that God counted as a despising of His name, b/c in His worship God was made known. In despising that whereby God made Himself known, they despised God’s name and therefore God Himself.

         3. But God loves the honor of His name, and He will see to it that His name is great, despite the sins of Israel.

            1. My name shall be great among the Gentiles, and my name shall be great among the heathen. My name is dreadful among the heathen (11, 14).

            2. This is a promise of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God with the coming of Christ, as well as a warning to Israel that her privileged place as God’s people would come to an end.

            3. All because God’s name MUST and SHALL be glorified.

   2. We must honor the name of God and therefore God Himself. That is the positive as explained by Q&A 99 (“Briefly, that we use the holy name of God no otherwise than with fear and reverence …”).

      1. To honor or glorify something means to accord something weight or importance. The Hebrew word “glory” means heavy or weighty, something with real substance and value.

         1. That explains the prohibition in the 3^rd Comm. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain …”

            1. Vanity is the opp. of glory, of weighty. Vanity is emptiness and lightness. Something vain is worthless, useless and of no consequence.

            2. Compared to God everything is vanity. The entirety of mankind and the entire universe is nothing in comparison to the glory, the heaviness of God. Isa. 40:17, “All nations before Him are as nothing and they are counted to Him less than nothing and vanity.”

            3. Therefore, God is glorious. His Word, the Bible is a glorious and weighty book, compared to which the sum total of man’s literature is vanity; the worship of God is glorious and weighty, compared to which all the activity of men is vanity; and the church of God is glorious and weighty because God has His name there, compared to which the society of man is vanity.

         2. That is how we must view things acc. to this Comm. We must not lift up God’s name unto vanity. We must accord it honor and glory.

            1. Never take the name of God for some vain or pointless use. God’s name must be reserved for only holy and worthy activities.

            2. Never make God’s name common, light and unimportant. God’s name must be viewed as the most excellent of all names, beside which all names (your name, my name, the names of your loved ones, the names of celebrities) must perish in the dust.

            3. Never use God’s name thoughtlessly or without due consideration.

      2. This means we are guilty of this Comm. It is often broken by God’s people.

         1. The wording of the Comm. shows this. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain …”

            1. The 3^rd Comm. is broken peculiarly by those who have the reputation of being the people of God, who have the name of God upon them.

            2. Just as your children would be guilty of taking your name in vain if by their behavior they brought your name into disrepute and just as a wife takes upon her husband’s name and becomes associated with him, so we have the responsibility as God’s children not to take God’s name in vain.

            3. That was the complaint of God in the OT: the name of God was blasphemed among the heathen because of the behavior of Israel, and today it is the same, the name of God is blasphemed by the heathen b/c of the behavior of that which calls itself Christian.

         2. Hypocrisy, therefore, is the most common violation of this Comm. by the church and by us.

            1. The false church takes God’s name in vain every time she calls herself church or Christian. Many billboards outside of churches where God’s Word is openly denied but which say, CHURCH, are simply a violation of this Commandment.

            2. The behavior of Christians in modern society is a taking of God’s name in vain. Consider the divorce and remarriage rate in the modern church, the scandalous lifestyle of many professing Christians and you will see that God’s name is dragged thru the mud.

            3. But we are guilty too: when we pretend to be pious Christians but behave like the world, we take God’s name in vain; when we pray but our minds are elsewhere, when we simply go thru the motions of worship, and our minds wander while we pretend to be listening to God’s Word, as Malachi puts it we “snuff” at God’s worship or find it a “weariness” we take God’s name in vain.

2. THE PROPER USE

   1. Some have so feared taking God’s name in vain that they have stopped using the name of God altogether. We saw the Jews did that with the name Jehovah. But the 3^rd Comm. includes the commandment to use His name.

      1. It is impossible to be neutral with respect to the name of God.

         1. Our society is guilty of the 3^rd Comm. as often as men open their mouths and that is before they curse and swear by God’s Name.

            1. God’s 3^rd Comm. is broken when men ignore, neglect and slight God’s name.

            2. Consider: society extols the power of nature but ignores and even denies the Creator. The creation proclaims God but the media ignore him.

            3. Consider: Schools teach history but do not give God due honor as the God whose providence determines history.

         2. The opposite of taking God’s name in vain is not silence, but actively glorifying Him.

            1. Either we honor the name of God or we profane it and Him. At one extreme is the blasphemer whose mouth is filled with cursing and bitterness, at the other extreme is the devout worshipper who sings, “How excellent is thy name in all the earth,” but in between is the man who ignores God altogether.

            2. And every time we fail to give God the glory, and by our silence dishonor Him, we take His name in vain. We live as if there were no God and His name is not given the importance it deserves.

      2. The Heidelberg Cat. describes three ways in which we must use God’s name properly.

         1. We must confess God as the one true and living God.

            1. To confess God’s name means to say the same thing or to say with: so when we confess God’s name, we say what God says about Himself in His Word.

            2. To confess God’s name means to agree with everything that the Bible says which is the authoritative revelation of who God is .

            3. And to confess God’s name is joyfully and openly to acknowledge that we belong to God, that His name is upon us and that His honor is our ultimate goal in all things.

         2. We must worship God rightly.

            1. God must be the object of our deepest affection, we must love and adore Him, and show that by praying to Him, praising Him with the other saints and by attending the worship services in which we gather in His name.

            2. All neglect of and pollution of worship is a denial of God’s name, as is every halfhearted or thoughtless religious exercise.

         3. We must glorify God in all our words and works.

            1. We must live in the consciousness, not that by sinning we bring dishonor on ourselves and risk ruining our own reputation, (that much bridles the ungodly) but that by sinning we bring shame on the name of God.

            2. Everything we say and do must aim at the glory of God and must actually glorify God, even if our name perishes, and we are never recognized for what we do, or even when we suffer persecution for what we do.

            3. Are we, are you, so zealous for God’s name? If not, we take His name in vain.

   2. One important use of the name of God is its use in swearing oaths or making vows. LD 37 especially addresses that subject.

      1. The 3^rd Comm. forbids certain kinds of swearing (rash [that is, unnecessary, frivolous] swearing) and perjury (that is swearing something which is a lie; lying under oath) but the 3^rd Comm. is not a blanket ban on all swearing of oaths.

         1. Q&A 101 explains oaths were “justly used by the saints …”

            1. Look for the formula of an oath: “As the Lord liveth …” “The Lord do to me and more also if …” or the putting of a person under oath, “Give glory to the Lord God of Israel” or “I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us …” or “Give God the praise.”

            2. The idea of an oath is that you are calling upon God to be witness that you are telling the truth and calling upon God to punish you if you are lying.

            3. God swore an oath in Heb. 6:17 (He could swear by none greater), Christ was put under oath in Matt. 26:63 and He did not object, Paul swears an oath in II Cor. 1:23, “I call God for a record upon my soul that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.”

         2. But a lawful oath must be taken only for very weighty matters, because we are calling upon God to confirm what we say is true.

            1. The HC gives some weighty reasons: when a magistrate requires it; when necessity requires it; when the glory of God & safety of neighbor are at stake.

            2. Therefore, there must be no glib swearing of oaths. Oaths must not be part of our normal everyday conversation. We must not be going around saying, “I swear … I swear” for every little thing in life.

            3. But neither must we refuse to swear when it is necessary for some weighty reason; in a world of liars, oaths are sometimes necessary but when we swear we swear by God’s name and that makes it a very serious matter.

      2. The HC was written in a period of theological controversy. The Reformed were opposed by three main groups: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anabaptism. The Anabaptists rejected all oaths and appealed to Matt. 5. Today some, such as the Quakers, still object to oaths.

         1. Matt. 5 is part of the Sermon on the Mt., where Jesus is outlining the principles of the kingdom of heaven.

            1. “Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” The necessity of oaths comes from the fact that men are liars, we need to have some extra guarantee apart from their own word that what they say is true.

            2. The point Jesus is making here is that Christians should be so trustworthy and so honest that their word should be enough. Oaths should not be necessary in the kingdom of God.

            3. Can you be relied upon to do what you have promised? Is your word worth something or do you have be chased after to do what you said? Are you unreliable or reliable?

         2. Moreover, Jesus is exposing the Pharisees’ misuse of the Law.

            1. Thou shalt not forswear thyself means “Thou shalt not break thy oath.” The Pharisees had invented ways in which they could swear but not break their oaths. They simply said that some oaths are more binding than others.

            2. So, said the Pharisee, to swear by the name of God, that is binding, but to swear by the temple that is not binding, or to swear by the altar is nothing, but to swear by the gift on the altar was a binding oath. In this way, the Pharisees swore and lied but did so under the appearance of piety.

            3. Jesus says that ALL oaths are binding and that the legal loopholes of the Pharisees are worthless. So, says Jesus, if you do not want to bind yourself by an oath, do not swear by Jerusalem, or by heaven or by earth or even by the hairs of your own head. In Matthew 23 He scolds the Pharisees for this (5:33-37; 23:16-22).

            4. The modern equivalent of Pharisaical swearing is to say, “My word does not count because my fingers were crossed,” or some other equivocation.

            5. The Lesson is: swear by God’s name, but only when the matter is weighty and when what you say is true, because your words bind you, but you should be so honest that swearing is unnecessary. A man who swears a lot is usually an habitual liar.

3. THE WICKED PROFANATION

   1. We all hear God’s name mocked in the society in which we live but the HC hardly touches on that. It is more interested in the blasphemy in which we are complicit. We must never study the 10 Comm. to expose the sins of others unless we are happy to have our own sins exposed.

      1. We must never be guilty of “these horrible sins.”

         1. We must never use the name of God as a swear word. We must never say, “O my God” or any of the equivalents. That includes all the ways men try to get around this Comm. Do not say, “Good heavens …” or “O, hell …” “O damn …” (no Xian should speak of hell flippantly), do not say O Gosh, or Golly, or my goodness, do not use the abbreviation OMG and rebuke those who do.

         2. Our attitude to any such sins must be horror. If men spoke of your mother in the way in which they speak of God, you would be outraged, but do we calmly allow God to be blasphemed this way?

      2. Our mouths may be pure but says the HC we must not become guilty of these sins by “silence or connivance.”

         1. To connive in something is to avoid speaking against it, to turn a blind eye to something and to help someone to do something.

         2. What do you do when you hear someone around you take God’s name in vain? The 3^rd Comm. demands that we defend God’s honor. Is that diff? Are we afraid. It could be as simple as saying, “His name be praised.” Or you could ask someone, “Would you like to hear someone speak about your mother like that.”

         3. This also applies to movies, TV, internet. Do not watch things which take God’s name in vain, and do not allow people to write OMG on Facebook, for example.

   2. The 3^rd Comm. comes with a threat against those who profane the holy name of God. “The Lord will not hold him guiltless …”

      1. The Lord therefore will hold him guilty, and will punish him as a guilty blasphemer.

         1. This sin is heinous and is a sin which makes God extremely angry. His wrath is kindled not only against the actual profaners but also against those who stand idly by and allow it.

         2. And the punishment is severe: death. God ordered blasphemers to be executed in the OT, and today His wrath is still against those who are guilty of it: eternal punishment in hell.

         3. We can see by this how important God’s name is to Him. He will not stand idly by while His name is profaned, but He will take terrible vengeance and will uphold His glory.

      2. But there is forgiveness for this sin. There is forgiveness because Christ upheld the honor of God’s name.

         1. Christ is the name of God, He is the full and final revelation of who God is, He is the Word of God who makes known the Father to His people.

         2. And the name of God was so important to Christ that He did everything to honor it. Read John 12:28.

         3. And when the honor of God’s name – the reputation of God’s holy character – meant that Christ must die, to vindicate God’s justice and to display God’s mercy, love and grace, Christ was willing to do even that for God’s name.

         4. O bless His name, Amen!