Well, I invite you to turn in the Scriptures tonight to the book of Leviticus, chapter 24. As you're turning there, a few things to get off my chest for a minute. I want to say how much I appreciate this congregation. You listened so well to the sermon this morning. Only one of you out of 500 came up and said, Do you know, Pastor, it's bridal and not brittle? And I felt like saying, Did you know I did that on purpose to test you? But I didn't say that. This is what you get when you get a city boy who has never handled a horse or a mule. But it keeps me very humble. And also, I want to say tonight that I really appreciate the encouragement that this congregation gives in response to the word. Don't ever think in that statement of Charles Spurgeon this morning that I was saying that I shouldn't hear those things. I need those things. I appreciate those things. But I also understand that it's the Lord who gives the understanding, and it's his work of the Spirit, so I rejoice in his working in you. So tonight, we're looking at the third commandment, which is, of course, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, and we are looking at a particular incident that happened tonight in Leviticus chapter 24, a sort of strange incident, but one that will help us, I believe, understand more God's will for us in the third commandment then I'll read the two question and answers in the back of the Psalter this is at verse 10 this is the word of the Lord now an Israelite a Israelite woman's son whose father was an Egyptian went out among the people of Israel and the Israelites a woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed then they brought him to moses his mother's name his mother's name was shalom it the daughter of debris of the tribe of dan and they put him in custody till the will of the lord should be clear to them then the lord spoke to moses saying bring out of the camp the one who cursed and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head and let all the congregation stone him and speak to the people of israel saying whoever curses his god shall bear his sin whoever blasphemes the name of the lord shall surely be put to death all the congregation shall stone him the sojourner as well as the native when he blasphemes the name shall be put to death there ends the reading of god's word and on page 50 we have this question 99 what is the lord's will for us in the third commandment and the answer is that we neither blaspheme nor misuse the name of god by cursing perjury or unnecessary oaths nor share in such horrible sins by being silent bystanders in a word it requires that we use the holy name of god only with reverence and awe so that we may properly confess him pray to him and praise him in everything we do and say question 100 is blasphemy of god's name by swearing and cursing really such a serious sin that god is angry also with those who do not do all they can to help prevent it and to forbid it yes indeed no sin is greater no sin makes god more angry than blaspheming his name that is why he commanded the death penalty for it well tonight we consider together the third commandment a commandment that we probably feel takes on less importance in light of the others in fact we would have been a little more appropriate we might think to preach the fourth commandment on Super Bowl Sunday but this one as I have studied and looked at this in the course of my life and preaching through the commandments of God I've realized how this sort of gets the back seat in terms of order of importance uh in the study of the 10 commandments or the 10 words of god you'll notice that's not the attitude of course of uh our authors of the heidelberg catechism it's really a remarkable statement that the authors say and think about this no sin is greater how many times have you heard the discussion that all sin is equal all sin is equally worthy of judgment but not all sin is equally as worthy in terms of consequences and punishment just study the book of leviticus and you'll see that some get stoning and some don't this one got stoning no sin is greater no sin makes god more angry than blaspheming his name isn't that a a remarkable thing to read if you want to commit one of the greatest sins in this life just take his name in vain well i would think that if that matters that much to him it should matter to us to understand the command to understand the command to understand what the breaking and this is sort of the outline for tonight what the breaking of the commandment looks like the importance of this command as we understand this command and then of course i want to conclude by considering how we can practice and honor this command to the glory of God. As I said, there's no question that the third commandment has great relevance for us in our day when taking the Lord's name in vain really has become part of everyday speech in life. I remember as when I went out into the working world and my first job was working for a beverage distributing company i could not believe how much the lord's name was taken in vain every other word these people used and i thought to myself as we look at the third commandment the plain and direct thing that it's addressing is that very verbal use of cursing and attaching curse words to the name of God before we really jump into this tonight what it's forbidding I think it's important that we think just for a moment the connection between the commandments we've looked at the first and the second commandment now in the first commandment you remember no other gods before me and the Lord was very strong in light of the old testament and the problem with Baal remember we considered a putting another God alongside of or beside of or in front of the true God and then came the second commandment which essentially said once you've you've dealt and detected and destroyed the problem of idolatry then you've got to deal with the problem of worshiping the true God correctly that's not a free-for-all the Lord himself now that you've you've bowed to him the second commandment is guiding and helping us to think through how best to worship him as he as he desires and we spent time explaining why he doesn't want images of himself we looked at that last time and then we come to the third and and just what i i thought of in james as i was preparing this sermon that it says if we break uh just one commandment we're guilty of breaking and stumbling and breaking the whole thing and that makes sense the overlap here is strong when we look at the first second third and fourth how intimately connected they are and what we find is that the third commandment tonight is very focused on how the true god is to be reverenced it's a very focused command on how we reverence him and his name in the course of our lives we dealt with worship and now we're looking at it in worship and in life if the first says no god other gods the second says don't try to represent the true god the third says continue in a life of worship in daily honoring and reverencing the name of the god that you love and enjoy don't misuse his name reference that name again the third commandment says tonight 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. As we have been doing, I've wanted to set this in the context, as the scriptures do, of some kind of narrative and some kind of story. I believe that really helps us to really understand the severity of the commandment, but also especially from the book of Leviticus, which often gets ridiculed that we hold to the book of Leviticus. But it's very important that we understand why God is doing what he's doing in the book of Leviticus. And in chapter 24 of Leviticus, we come to this very strange little section in the midst of all the giving of the law. We have a little brief story of somebody who takes the name of the Lord in vain. What an interesting section of scripture. You'll notice here that this son of an Israelite woman whose father was Egyptian went out among the children of Israel in this Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. There was a fist fight. Never seen that at the Escondido URC, and I'm thankful. But it has happened in Israel. A fist fight out in the middle of the camp. Israel, of course, had been in Egypt all of those 400 years. And during this time, remember in our study, when they came out, a whole mixed multitude came out with them, sojourners and aliens. that's why you have that language in the old testament and what we have here in this mixed multitude is that in our text an israelite woman had obviously married an egyptian man and they had a son together we read in verse 11 that during this fight the israelite woman's son blasphemes the name of the lord and curses and so they brought him to moses Now, I don't know what was going on. If the Israelites are like Americans, we all love a good fight. I was amazed in school when two people got in a fist fight. A hundred people came running just to watch the thing. Everyone loved to see the fight and get the action. Well, they got more than they bargained for. in the course of the fistfight we read that this man blasphemed the name and cursed some of the translations will have here name of the lord of the lord in italics but you'll notice here that the esv just has the name and that should really stand out to us tonight he blasphemed the name you should feel the weight of that that's the intention here we're supposed to feel that obviously many had gathered around they had put him in custody they had put him they had locked him up and notice a little phrase there till the will of the lord should be clear about this what does that tell you when that is stated i think we're maybe inclined to ask what the fight was about i find it interesting the inclusion by moses the insinuation here is there is a real divide in the camp on what to do with this particular situation what do we do with this is it really think of the heidelberg question tonight is it really such a serious sin is it how bad is what this man how bad what did he just really do is it really that bad Some are probably saying, listen, it's a fist fight. We all know sports brings out the worst in people. How many times have we been down playing ball and there it flies when someone gets mad? I hear it every time at LA Fitness. And I have addressed it once. Probably should have done it more. We'll talk about that. The name flies out. And he curses the name. What if this were your son? i mean that's a fair question isn't it what is this for your son some must have been saying oh it's just a slip of the tongue which would sort of lead us to the conclusion of james who can control the tongue right who can tame the tongue it's an unruly evil whatever the case we could imagine all the objections especially in our day if this were the situation imagine trying to put somebody under church discipline for taking the lord's name in vain think about that how would we take to putting somebody under discipline for taking the lord's name in vain i've never heard of that in the course of my life well what was at stake of course it's obvious that he had blasphemed the name of the lord a few verses later and it emphasizes the lord even says it the name most of us know today this and it was this particular passage that so influenced the rabbis this particular one that they wouldn't even later on pronounce the holy name of the Lord based on this and of course exodus exodus 3 tying it all together they looked at this and there was a change that was later adopted by the Jews the rabbi studied this and from the earliest periods the Lord would not be even mentioned the name of the Lord would not be even mentioned they became very superstitious about the name and here's what they did to the name instead of saying this son blasphemed the name the rabbis made a little twist there and they went further they said he pronounced the name so in many years throughout israel This is why to this day you don't say the holy name. Which I often think about how loosely the Lord's name is used today. We put it on bumper stickers and we run it around everywhere. I bring all this up tonight because of the emphasis here on name. It tells us a lot about what it is to break the third commandment, doesn't it? It gives us some indication to get into the mind of the Lord on how to deal with what he did with the third commandment. What did this young man do? What did he do? How bad was the sin? He obviously had cursed the glorious name that had been revealed to Moses. That's the effect of this when he said in the burning bush, I am who I am. He took that name and cursed it. He blasphemed it and cursed. And the blaspheme of his name, what comes across here, is that the man was so angry in a fit of rage, in a moment, it flies out, he takes the holy name of God, blatantly curses it, probably provoking the full-blooded Israelite, dragging God's name through the mud in the most degrading way possible. Now, how serious was God about all this? Well, what we find is that they didn't just go to Moses. the entire thing was now set off sent off to god himself this is trial this is a case study this is going right to the lord that the mind of the lord might be shown to them about the third commandment let's go to him and what we find is that the lord was so angry and bothered with this that he wanted it made known that the man who not only did it, but that those who even heard it in the course of the fight, that all the congregation that was involved in this and heard this were to take this man out and stone him to death. Now, if that were your son, Things got real serious in Israel and you just felt the weight of the Old Covenant. You just felt the weight of the Old Covenant. Now, why do I believe we need a passage like this? Why do I believe we need to study a passage like this? Well, understanding the Old and coming across an episode is really important. These are the passages in the Old Testament that we know when it comes to all the controversial things, people will pull out and say, you guys are monsters, your God's a monster. And they mock Christians and they say, look at what your Bible says. Look at what you guys believe. And we stand back and this is, and let's be honest, we're so used to hearing about forgiveness. We're so used to being pardoned. Every Sunday you hear a declaration of pardon. Every Sunday you hear about grace and mercy. You've heard it all throughout this sermon together tonight. How does a passage like that make you feel? I asked my children at the kitchen table. We had a kitchen table discussion about it. How does this make you feel? And the consensus around the table is, boy, that's really harsh. Is it? Is it? If you feel that, then we really do see how lightly we take sin. That's the purpose that we need the book of Leviticus. It shows how lightly we regard the third commandment. We might say it's okay for murder, right? capital punishment, somebody murders their life, taking the name. Everyone should say, well, who can really control the tongue here? Who can really control the tongue here? In the heat of frustration, who can do that? And the answer is nobody can. And Moses writes this to jolt our minds to the third commandment, how important it is. What is taking the Lord's name in vain? It's often been observed. When we name and we give names to our children, today it has nothing to do with meaning does it we go through names and today you know have you ever noticed how eccentric and strange we want to make the names today it's got to be the next radical name bill bob john those are out sorry they're just they're done they're kind of boring today we've got to have the new next radical name don't we when we named kindle we found out afterward her name means ruler of the Bright Valley. I have no idea what that is. Darcy's name, we found out, means dark, to which I asked, what are your parents doing when they named you? The name. You know how frustrating it is when people butcher last names. Why is that important? What is included in a name represents the person. It's altogether different when it comes to misusing the holy name of the Lord. I want you to think about this for a moment, that his name is a revelation to us. Think about this. Calvin rightly said, and it's the one statement the Institute's right out of the gates, that every time I go over it, I just pause and I think about it a lot. We can never ask the question, what is God? You can't get there. I can't get to the inner being. But you can answer, and you can ask the question, what is God like to us? And when you begin to answer the question, what God is like to us, you're going to the revelation of what He's told you in His Word. Do you understand that's what names are? They're a revelation of God to help us understand what He is like to us. They're accommodations. The Bible speaks of many names of the Lord. Think of all these names that are put down in the Scripture. You identify by a single name. think about all these names that flood the scriptures of the lord think about this i the some of the major ones yahweh jaira meaning the lord will provide yahweh nisi the lord is my banner yahweh sabaoth the lord of hosts i could go on and on and on all those names we studied in the book of genesis when we were going through when the lord wanted to communicate some way what he was like to his people and and and in his revelation in his scripture how he was treating his people. Elohim, the general name for God, the strong one, the powerful one. Now all of these names reveal something about his relation to us. What kind of God he's like to us. That he cares for us. The Ten Commandments begin with, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. I am, this is what I am for you. The Lord your God. The Bible has, you'll notice tonight, all these different names and then you'll notice in the call to worship and in the songs that we sing out you'll notice the name the general name of the lord lord our lord how excellent is your name in all the earth here uh you'll notice that name is exalted above all the heavens and the earth or psalm 54 1 save me oh god by your name and vindicate me by your strength when the third commandment is saying you shall not take the name of the lord your god in vain it includes everything that god has revealed of himself including what he has revealed of himself to us through the many names dispersed on the pages of scripture summarized in the name we're going to get there in a minute now doesn't that just display to us the incredible mercy of god that he would condescend that he would come to us in such a degree and begin to give himself these names so that we can identify and know Him and understand Him. Give us concrete associations so that we can understand and know and have a saving relationship with Him. He cares so much to say, look at what kind of God I am. The mere name, Yahweh. The glorious name to exist, to be. And everyone's understood that throughout history. To understand that this is a God who does not change in his will toward his people. This is a God, as one pastor said, these four letters, I am who I am. That is, I exist as Savior, listen to this, as Savior and liberator. This came in the context of him coming to get them out of Egypt. I exist as Savior and liberator. I make real what I say. I do what I promised. That is really glorious. The promises I made to your ancestors, to your people, I fulfill. So every time they heard that name, they knew of God's faithfulness, his covenant faithfulness. The most glorious name revealed, given to show his compassion, given so that people would understand how much he cares, given so that they would know his love, given so that they would understand the incredible mercy and covenant faithfulness, the covenant love of God. And if he has gone to that much care to reveal something about Him. Think about the great offense and the great problem of the human heart when somebody takes that name and runs it right through the mud and attaches the worst language we know and have in our own language, the worst words we have, the worst curse words to the name. The idea here is that when one curses the name, it's to make him utterly despicable. It is to be utterly, render him utterly insignificant. Isn't this a remarkable thing that this is not limited to just Americans? This problem? It's not just Americans who do this. It's not just in the United States. Every people that have ever existed on the face of the earth, when they are expressing with the mouth ultimate word, think about this, think about this, transcends time all the different cultures it's it's all the different ages think about this everyone who has existed on the face of the earth when they're expressing with the mouth the ultimate expression of anger and hate and frustration and when all emotion is put together and wrapped up into one and then funneled out through the tongue we take god's holy revelation of himself and attach the worst language we can to it that's not just an american problem What does that tell you? Cultures haven't done that to the name Muhammad. Cultures haven't done that to the name Buddha. Just our God. Which is a sick way of proving that He exists, doesn't it? Now, I'm intrigued with question 100. Is blasphemy of God's name by swearing and cursing really such a serious sin that God is angry with those who do not do all they can to prevent it and forbid it. Yes, indeed, no sin is greater. No sin makes God more angry than blaspheming His name. That's why God commanded the death penalty. How do we break it? Well, we break it with the mouth. We curse Him. We misrepresent Him. Doing things that are dishonest. Did you notice in the catechism when we're not honest in our dealings with people? We break this commandment and I hear this one all the time we've all done it when we represent God falsely how do we do that how often is God's name used for our agendas I just heard the other night a candidate I'm not attacking any candidate I hear this from every seems to be every candidate for the president when he said God bless Iowa why should God bless Iowa because he won you see what he did god's being used for our agenda jay delma every believer must regularly ask himself whether he is really communicating what god wills or whether he is simply pressing his own will and using god's name to accomplish the goal amen amen that's a big way we break it well, God will never judge me. How much have you heard that? I can go and continue in my sin and do whatever I want, and God supports me. God loves me. Who are you to tell me it's wrong? I found it interesting that Abraham Kuyper said, we're seldom asked to show our gratitude to God by doing something, but rather emphasis is placed in Scripture upon being something. And by being something, we in turn glorify God and bring honor to the holy name of God. Romans makes the great case that we break the third commandment. You'll remember in Romans 1, he goes through all the list of all the homosexual sins and all the bad sins, and then he turns to the community, the Jewish community in Romans 2, and he says, you who say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who say, who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Third commandment. So that's the hypocrisy in our lives, not only with speech, but when we live absolutely contrary to our confession. When you've often heard the statement, well, I couldn't go to that church because I know what those people are out doing on the weekends. They're all getting drunk. That is a major breaking of the third commandment. Now, here's something to consider. In John 8, Jesus said, Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. They knew what he was saying. He just said, I am who I am. And they were so mad, they accused him of blasphemy. He just took the name to himself. Who are we really cursing? when we break the third commandment you see the new testament comes to us and says therefore god has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that at the name of jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that he is lord think about the third commandment in that light nor is there salvation says peter and any other for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved and i believe that should have a great effect in guarding our speech and our lives because who are we really identified with you understand what he came to do for us he came to fulfill the law you know last weekend in mark 3 there was one sin jesus said he'll never forgive it was a specific sin what was it was blasphemy against the holy spirit the pharisees had done that remember when they attributed to him the works of satan and said he's of another spirit that was the line but jesus said something in the midst of all that that I hope you really picked up last time, I will forgive every blasphemy except one. Emphasis on, I will forgive every sin and blasphemy. His own family had just said he was mad and disregarded the holy name. My point is, is that when we come and we see that Jesus, this pure, undefiled Savior, came to love us and forgive us. What we all deserve when we look at this Old Testament passage is the same thing. But He didn't give that to us. Instead, He forgave us. Instead, He invites us to walk with Him, to dine with Him. We need to realize, as one pastor said, and as we think about the name of the Lord and the holy name of the Lord. We live in a culture today where it is abused and used so tragically and in every kind of wrong way. Remember who we are. Who we belong to. What He's done to forgive us and not give us what we deserve as we looked at in the canons tonight. Maybe the words of the Heidelbergs we struggle with a little bit. How in the world am I supposed to stop and do all that I can to prevent anyone who's running around taking the name of the Lord. I mean, it's such a way of life for people. How do you even deal with that? I believe that Dalma is right when he says that that sort of language, when it dominates the life of somebody who's a non-believer, is an expression of the emptiness that resides in their heart. That's why we're different. In other words, that's why we should strive now because the Spirit dwells within us and because we have been saved by the name of the Lord. But Dalma says this about non-believers. Our attitude shouldn't be, why do you attack my religious convictions? Why do you offend me? Deeper still, the question is, is this not the creator of your very life whose name you use so lightly? What is the best way that we can put this into practice in our lives? How did Jesus teach us to pray? I'll close with this. The first petition. How much of a concern was it when He said, Lord, taught us to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. In other words, what Jesus was telling us, what Jesus was telling His disciples is this is so important. I want you to begin your prayers with it. This is so important. I want your prayers to be framed by this right out of the gates. Sometimes I believe our prayers are so anemic because we're not following the most basic outline God has given us in the Word. Hallowed be your name when we get up in the morning. Hallowed be your name before we go to bed. What are you asking us to do? Listen to the words of this. Help me, God, to really know you. To bless, to worship, and praise You for all Your works that shines forth from them. Your almighty power, Your wisdom, Your kindness, Your justice, Your mercy, and Your truth. The psalmists were always first taken in their prayers with God's glory. And you heard tonight a recognition of the holy name of the Lord. And that helps us in all of our living and what we think and do, that we would never break the third commandment. We would ask the Lord that we would never blaspheme His name, but that we would always live our lives in honor and praise of Him, never taking it in vain. Colossians 3 says, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. I know I just scratched the surface and hopefully that helped to some degree to think about the implications of the third commandment but I think what hopefully is very clear for you tonight as we leave and go out and start another week is that through the name of the Lord by the name of the Lord we have been saved and as a response of gratitude for all that he's done for us let us care deeply let us care deeply about how we honor the holy name of God in our lives in all of our speech and in all of our living as those who have been saved by the one who's been given the name above every name. Let's pray together. Gracious Heavenly Father, tonight we pray and ask for forgiveness that at times we have not honored Your name and that we've taken that name in vain. And we ask tonight that You would guide us and that as we rise in the morning that it would be on our lips. Hallowed be Your name. Direct all of our living so that we would reverence You, enjoy You, bless You, understand You, know You, fear You, go in Your strength and remember that we belong to You in body and soul purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. And we pray all of these things tonight in Jesus' name and all of God's people said together, Amen.