Sanctification Commanded Series

During the Civil War one company of soldiers adopted a

rule that every man who swore would be required to read

aloud a chapter from the Bible. While that rule was in force

one private read all of Genesis and Exodus and was starting

on Leviticus. The one recording the experience said he had

a fine prospect of finishing the Old Testament before his

three months enlistment was up. If ever there was a good

thing done for a bad reason, this was it. I suspect that the

Bible societies could scarcely meet the demand if this rule

was in force today. Swearing and using the name of God

and Christ in vain are so common today that it is hardly

even shocking anymore.

Swearomaniacs are allowed to run loose everywhere in

our society filling the air with pollution as dangerous to the

soul as carbon monoxide to the body. Profanity is one of our

greatest air pollution problems. It is highly contagious, and

young people grow up becoming infected with it almost

unconsciously. When I was a chaplain at a county jail I

asked the men to think about why they swear so much.

Every one of them agreed, they picked it up as children from

their parents.

Modern novels and films spew the poisonous germs of

profanity into the stream of our consciousness at a

frightening rate. If somebody is not swearing somewhere in

a movie it is supposedly unrealistic. As a matter of fact, it is

unrealistic to portray the lives of typical people without

profanity. Anyone who works among the public is aware of

the impure vocabulary of modern man, and regrettably,

modern women also. It use to be in poor taste to swear in

the presence of a lady, but now days she is liable to beat you

to it.

Young people are exposed to profanity from every angle.

And English teacher assigned a composition to be written

containing 250 words. The next day one boy stood up to

read his, and said, "My uncle was driving his new car one

day and he had a puncture. The other 236 words are not fit

for publication." It is not likely that the teacher would let

him get by with this, but it is also true that God will not let

the uncle get by with his profanity.

The Third Commandment has a concluding statement that says, "For

the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in

vain." We are not dealing here with a trivial matter, but one

that is extremely important from God's point of view. The

Third Commandment has to be taken seriously in our day,

for it is as far from being obsolete as sunshine and oxygen in

this dark and polluted world.

The implications and applications are two numerous to

cover in one message, and so we will be limiting ourselves to

a practical explanation of what is involved. Like the

previous commandments, this one is in a negative form, but

we will see Jesus give it a positive side. Let's consider first

the negative emphasis which-

I. PROHIBITS PROFANITY OF SPEECH.

You will notice that out of ten commandments two of

them deal with sins of the tongue--this one, and the ninth,

concerning false witness. Here it is our tongue in

relationship to God, and in the ninth, it is our tongue in

relationship to man.

The first thing we need to see concerning taking the

name of God in vain is that it is a serious sin. The tendency

is to think that after all, this is a minor matter in a world

plagued by war and crime and immorality. This attitude

reveals the degree of our deception and the superficial

nature of our understanding concerning the cause of mans

depravities. People often swear and say they mean nothing by it.

They think that eliminates them from danger, but that is the

very thing that is forbidden. To use Gods name in vain

means to use it in an empty and meaningless way. If you

mean nothing by it, you confess you have used it in vain.

We ought never to use the holy name of God except when we

mean something by it, and something worthy to be identified

with His great name. What is more empty and worthless

than men constantly asking God to damn someone or

something? Does anyone really think that God will follow

through? All they do by this empty use of God's name is

heap to themselves damnation. The person who uses God's

name in vain is saying that God is an empty meaningless

word.

All other sins are by-products of the loss of respect and

reverence for God. Once a man loses the sense of the holy

and the sacred he has broken down the only restraint that