Trinity Baptist Church

God’s Perfect Ten

What’s In a Name?

Exodus 20:7

 

Did you ever hear the phrase, “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket”?  I think that is especially true in the way we talk, and in particular, how we talk about God. Show me how a person uses the name of God and I can be very insightful in regard to the character of that person.

 

Notice what the Bible says to us about the name of God in

 

Exodus 20:7

 

Now remember, we have in the Ten Commandments a succinct list of requirements from God regarding relationships.  The first four deal with our relationship to God; the last six, our relationship to fellow human beings.

 

So far, we’ve looked at two of the four that deal with how we relate to God.  The first one tells us Who to worship; the second tells us how to worship.  Tonight we come to the third that deals with the use, misuse and abuse of the name of God.

 

It outlines very nicely under two headings:

 

First of all, the abuse of the name, taking the name in vanity, and then secondly, the use of the name, taking the name in victory and everybody when they take the name of God either takes the name of God in vanity or they take the name of God in victory.

 

Now, how do we take the name of God in vanity? How do we abuse the holy name of God? Let me give you three ways.

 

First of all, we abuse the name of God by

 

- profanity

 

And unfortunately, this may be the most common way the name of God is misused.  All sins are terrible, but I don’t know that anything is more profane than profaning the name of God.

 

There are several reasons I believe that.  First of all, profanity reveals a person’s

 

 

For a person to take the Holy name of God or the precious name of Jesus and mix it with the filthiness of the world show what that person thinks about God.

 

And sometimes when you rebuke a man about his profanity, be will say, “Oh, I didn't mean anything by it.”

 

Now here is a person who has taken the name that is above every name, the name of Jehovah God, the name by which the blind were given sight, the name by which deaf ears were made to hear, the name by which the dead are raised, the name by which we're saved, turned it into a curse word and then has the audacity to say, “It’s no big deal.  Id didn’t meant anything by it.”

 

 

How spiritually stupid can you get? What he is saying is that God means nothing to me.  I can take his name and use it to cuss and not even mean anything by it. God means no more to him than a mangy dog on the street if he can take the name of God and not mean anything by it.

 

And by the way, that is exactly what God is warning against when He says don’t take my name in vain.  The word vain means emptiness and worthlessness.  It’s of no effectiveness.  And when a person takes the name of God in vain, it gives proof positive that they have absolute contempt for God.

 

Here’s the second thin.  When a person takes the name of God in vain, it shows their

 

 

Not only does he hold God in contempt, they live it out by rebelling against Him.

 

Look there in your Bible at verse 7.  There it is in black and white.  It’s as plain as the nose on your face for all to see, for all to know, for all to read.  And it is the height of rebellion for a person to say, “God, I know what you said but I'm going to do it anyway.”  And every time the name of God is misused, man shakes his puny fist in the face of deity, he spits in the face of God with his profanity, and says, “I’ll show you.  I’m not going to do what you tell me to do.”

 

And when a person is at that level, their profanity reveals  the

 

Just to put it plain English, it’s about as rotten and sorry as a person can get when a man takes the name of God in vain.

 

Remember, what’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.  And a profane person who doesn’t care about the laws of God has a poison on the inside that is revealed through that profanity.

 

It also shows a

 

 

Someone has described profanity as the feeble attempt of a weak mind to express itself.  And at it’s root it show how very little a person knows about the Creator of the universe.

 

And by the way, sometimes Christians fall into this trap. We would never use the curse words of profanity, but we do second-hand cursing.

 

We just use substitutes when we want to curse.  We say things like golly, and gee whiz, and gosh darn and darned and heck and all of these things.  They’re just substitutes; second-hand ways of cursing.

 

In fact, if you look at the history of the word “gee whiz” you will find it is an American euphemism for Jesus Christ.  “Gee” is just a shortened form of Jesus.  Golly and gosh are substitutes for God;

Darn and darned are just colloquial euphemisms for damn and damned.

 

And chances are most people run around today using variations of curse word and have no idea they are violating the third commandment.

And someone says, “I had no idea!”  That’s exactly my point.  It shows a lack of understanding about the holiness of God and the respect we should have for His name.

 

And finally, profanity shows our

 

 

If we are in the habit of using God’s name to curse and damn our fellow man, then we show our disregard for the value God places on that life.

 

As Christians, we understand that Jesus died in agony and blood upon the cross to save men from hell.  What a wicked prayer it is, what a profane thought that one man would tell another man to go to hell or curse him in the name of God.

 

In fact, it's time the Christians of this world stood up and told this world, not to go to hell, but through the blood of Jesus, to go to heaven!  What hatred it shows for one man to want for God to consign him to hell!   And besides that, it is a request against the very nature of God Himself.  God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance!  Jesus Christ came not into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.

 

What a messed up concept of God and lack of understanding and arrogance and rebellion that we would take an attitude that even God Himself doesn’t have!

 

So first of all, people misuse the name of God with profanity.

 

Sometimes God’s name is misused through

 

 

I mean by that, there are many who make fun of or make light of things that are sacred and holy.  Holy things, sacred things, glorious things are sometimes the butt of foolish jokes and frivolous remarks.

 

We see it quite often in the world of entertainment.  Secular music minimizes the holiness of God; movies pervert that which is sacred; TV makes light of and fun of what is holy; the media ridicules Christianity and God.

 

And we do it in church as well.  We tell jokes and sing songs that give no thought of who the God is that they're singing about or talking about.  Preachers tell jokes with no point at all except that somehow they involves God and some silly little nothing point.  We have become a generation of backslapping, sanctified morons, cracking jokes about holy things, making puns about sacred things.

 

And don't mishear me.  You know I love humor and laughter.  I believe humor is one of the gracious gifts of our God and I believe that a merry heart does good like a medicine and I believe that humor can be used to make a point or illustrate a truth.

 

Someone asked Mr. Charles Haden Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers ever lived, Spurgeon, do you ever use humor in your message? He said, ”I tickle my oyster till he opens the shell and then I stick the knife in.” I like that.

 

 

But I’m talking about pointless, needless, silly laughing and joking about God that gives no regard to His holiness and does not reverence His name.

 

Jesus taught us that we are to prayer “Hallowed be Your name”. Do you hallow the name of Almighty God?  To use the name of God in a flippant, careless, sacrilegious way, though you may not been guilty of the sin of profanity, is to be guilty of the sin of  taking the Name of the Lord your God in vain through frivolity.

 

Then there is a third way to take the name of God in vain, and that is through

 

 

Listen to Isaiah 48:1

 

Now there are three primary ways we can hypocritically take the name of the Lord in vain.

 

You might have a

 

 

When a person professes to be a Christian and is not, he has taken the name of God in vain.

 

A Christian is someone who has taken upon themselves the name of Christ.  After all, that's why we call him a Christian and if he's not a true Christian, if he's a counterfeit Christian, he has taken God's name in vain. 

 

Not only can there be vain professions, there can also be also

 

In Matthew 6:7 Jesus warned about praying with vain repetitions.

 

When you rattle off a prayer without thinking about the God to whom you're praying or just repeat the Lord’s prayer and give it no thought, that may be taking the Lord’s name in vain.

 

Listen, friend, we don't say prayers, we are to pray prayers. Prayers are not to be said; it's not something that we just say a phrase because it sounds good or we’ve heard others say it.

 

We ought to be very careful about our prayers so they don’t become vain repetition.

 

Then we might be hypocritical because of

 

 

It’s possible to get in a worship service and just mouth the words and go through the motions and sing the songs and are minds be on any and everything but God.

 

And it’s possible to be in church with a Bible in one hand and a hymnal in the other and take God’s name in vain.  Do you ever just listen to the words we’re singing?  “My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine, for thee all the follies of sin I resign.”

 

Do you mean that when you sing it? In other words, God here is my commitment through the words  of this song I’m singing in worship to you:

 

“I turn from everything I know to be wrong because Jesus, you're more to me than anything else.”

 

Do you mean that? If you don't mean it, why do you sing it? You take his name in vain.

 

We stand and sing “I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender”, then we go out and live for self and self alone as though Christ had never lived and died. We sing take my silver and my gold, not a might would I withhold and we can’t don’t even give an offering much less not withhold anything!

 

Listen:  I’m under the impression that when I sing and praise the Lord, He’s listening!  I don’t want Him to ever have to confront me after a worship service and say, “You liar! You didn’t mean all that stuff you said; you were just putting on a show!”

 

How do we do misuse His name? Sometimes with profanity; sometimes with frivolity, and sometimes with hypocrisy with false professions, false prayers and false praises.

 

But now let's think about the other side of this commandment.  When the Bible says don't take the name of God in vanity, it implies that if we are not to abuse the name, then there must be a way to use the name rightly. And so, let's think for just a moment about how to rightly use the name of the Lord in victory. 

 

We use the name in victory for

 

- Salvation

 

 

When you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, or help someone else to do that, you use the name of God in victory.

 

Remember what the angel announced announced to Mary concerning Jesus?  “Call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.”

 

Acts 4:12 says, “Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus.”

 

Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

 

Why doesn't it just say whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved? Why is the instruction to call upon the name of the Lord?  The reason is because there are so many false Gods and imitations and substitutes in the world.

 

Listen:  It’s not just any Lord you call upon.  IT’s not that there are many pathways to God.  It is the Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God that we must call upon.  It is a confession based upon a conviction that God raised Him from the dead.

 

And the reason that is so emphatic and specific is because whoever shall call upon that name shall be saved.  So we can rest assured that we always use the name rightly and in victory when it’s used in salvation.

 

We also use the name rightly when we serve in that name.

 

The bible says in the book of Colossians that whatever we do in word or deed we're to do all in the name of Jesus giving thanks unto the Father by him.

 

Whatever we do, we are to do in the name of Jesus. Why do we do it in the name of Jesus?  Because that’s where the power is.  What does it mean to serve in the name of Jesus? It means  we serve under His Authority.

 

Names carry authority. When you sign your name to a check that means you authorize money to be taken from your account. When you put your name on a contract, you are placing your authority there.

 

In like manner, when we serve in the name of Jesus it is under and with His authority.  That impacts our praying.  We’re not just tacking on an ending to our prayer that sounds Biblical.  When we pray in Jesus name, it is more than just simply saying it to make it in his name. This means a prayer that has his authority. You're acting as his power of attorney when you say in Jesus name.

 

I am to serve in the name of Jesus and what a joy it is to preach and teach and sing and serve in the name of Jesus.

 

When we do what we do, we don’t do it in our won authority.  I'm not preaching in my authority.  I wouldn't dare to stand up here and preach in my authority.  Rather, I am here as an ambassador for Christ preaching the Word of God in the authority of Christ. That's not arrogance, that's plain common sense. Jesus said you go and make disciples and lo; I am with you always, even until the end of the earth and he's given that authority to every believer.

Therefore, we are to live and serve in the name of Jesus Christ. And we're to do it for his glory, that's what it means to use the name rightly.

 

Not only with his authority , but for his approval.

 

Not only do names carry authority, they also represent character.  The Bible says a good name is to be chosen above great riches.

 

When I live in the name of Jesus that means that my life is to be in keeping with the character of Jesus so that that everything I do Jesus could sign his name to it and say yes, I am pleased with that, that is in keeping with my character.

 

Therefore, when I serve in His name, I can rightly use that name for victory with His authority and His approval and to do less is to take His name in vain.

 

Now, not only are we to saved in that name and do we serve in the name , but we're also secure in the name of Jesus.

 

The Psalmist said “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are safe.”

 

Think about the security of the name.  Isn't it wonderful to be secure in the name of Jesus? I never have to worry about God losing me.  I don’t have to worry about God abandoning me or giving up on me.  I never have to worry about God condemning me or harming me.  I am absolutely secure through the Name of Lord. 

 

 

 

Listen:  What’s in a name?  When it comes to the Name of the Lord, it’s either vanity or victory.  Are you using the name in vanity or are you using the name in victory? Do you abuse the name or do you use the name?

 

Mrs. William Booth, the wife of the founder of the Salvation Army told a story about a man who was on his death bed and the family lawyer told his wife some papers needed to be signed before he died.

 

They brought those legal papers to him and explained what they were and that they needed his signature.  The old man lifted the pen and signed.

 

Later when they looked at the paper they were amazed to see that instead of his own name, he had written Jesus.  The only name that meant anything to him at that time was Jesus. The only thing on his heart was that name that was above every name.

 

And I tell you ladies and gentleman, when you come to die and when your feet are touching those chilly waters of the rivers of death, legal papers are not going to mean much to you either.

 

There's one name that will matter then and it is that name that is above every name.  And when that day comes, if you have not taken the name in victory, you’ll receive it in vanity.  You’ll acknowledge the name then, but it will be an empty acknowledgement that echoes through eternity in hell.

 

Let’s pray.