Third Commandment (3 Of 12)

Illus: In Connecticut four ministers were named Wright none of them were related. To avoid confusion:

• One was referred to as: “Minister Upright".

• Another was referred to as, “Minister Downright”.

• And another was referred to as, “Minister Outright.”

• And the fourth was referred to as, “Minister Forthright.”

Illus: One man, who happened to be named Smith, explained that years ago everybody's name was Smith, but as they got in trouble with the law one by one they were forced to change their name.

If that is true we sure have a bunch of outlaws here today.

But again, I want to remind you in Bible times a person's name was supposed to represent what they were. This was certainly true of God; His name stood for who He was, not who anyone might have just thought He was.

The Jews would rarely speak His name aloud because they felt they were not worthy.

Tradition has it that God's name was only mentioned once a year by the high priest on the day of atonement.

In reading the Scriptures it became customary to never to pronounce His name but to replace it with another Divine name which was regarded as more acceptable.

Illus: To help us understand the logic in this, we know how disrespectful it seems when a small child walks up to a grown up and call them by their name. They show the proper respect by substituting the first name for Mr. or Mrs.

The Jews understood God's name was to be spoken as one approached Him to worship Him, and not as an adjective to express some emotional feeling that we have that has nothing to do with worship.

The third commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Even though most names do not represent a person's character today, still, when one build a good, or bad, reputation, he is then known when his name presented, as being that kind of person.

For example, In Columbia, S.C. one man is honest and trustworthy. But when he buys something, he is denied credit. Why? Because there is another man in town who has the same name he has who has cheated people all over town. Every time he is denied credit he has to go through explaining to the people that there is another man in town with this name. They go back and do another credit report, once this is done he is given credit.

God is greater than anyone or anything on this earth, and He commands us to use His name only with the reverence He deserves. Sad to say, not many obey this commandment these days.

This is one commandment that can be disobeyed in many ways.

Illus: Often these days we hear people on television getting mad and screaming, “Jesus Christ!” They want to take Someone that is beautiful, holy, and altogether righteous and associate Him with something evil. They could use ten thousand other names, but they are determine to use His sacred name, because Satan wants mankind everytime he hears the name of God that He associate it with something evil, or not sacred.

We can expect these heathens to talk like that, but I remind you God gave the ten commandments to the children of Israel, His very own people, not to heathens.

We as God's children today, cannot help the way the lost world uses the sacred name of “God." But we can make sure their ignorance does not rub off on us.

Let me show you THREE ways we can transgress against His sacred name:

I. WE CAN TRANSGRESS GOD'S NAME THROUGH PROFANITY,

Look at "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Profanity is the most useless sin a man can commit. Every sin a man commits he gets something for the sin, but when a man use profanity the only thing he accomplishes is a display of his ignorance in not being able to express himself in a proper way.

Paul wrote young Timothy and told him in the last days, "For men shall be blasphemers...”

It is believed by many we have more foul language today than any society that has ever existed. Did you know that America, the country that professes to be a Christian nation, has become known for her use of profanity more so than any other country today.

Illus; Up until the 50's you could hardly find a man who would curse in front of a woman or a child. Today it is not unusual to find men who have no respect for them whatsoever. In fact, now the women and children use as much foul language as the men do.