Sermon Deuteronomy 5:11 “Don’t Misuse God’s Name"
New Covenant Church
March 4, 2018
This is my third sermon in a series on the Ten Commandments. We have heard the first commandment in Deuteronomy 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me”. We learned that the God we are to worship is the same God who delivered his people from slavery in Egypt. And the principles given to us in the Ten Commandments teach us how to remain free. If we worship anything other than the Creator God we will be enslaved to that which we worship. But if we worship God and obey his commands we maintain our freedom.
Then in the second commandment, we heard, “8 You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” We learned that we have been given the wonderful gift of being able to create things. But we should never worship things we make out of metal and stone and wood. The only object of our worship, the most important person in our lives is God Almighty.
Today we turn to the third commandment, “11 You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” We will get to this, but first, let’s pray.
“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
The Ten Commandments can be found in two places in the Old Testament. In Exodus 20 God spoke directly to his people from Mount Sinai just after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt. Forty years later, Moses repeated the commandments for the people just about to enter the promised land. And it is from these words of Moses that we hear:
Deuteronomy 5:1 Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 It was not with our ancestors that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. … And he said: … 11 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
In the third commandment, God wants us to approach him with reverence and awe and to always use his name properly. What could this mean?
We all have names, usually given to us by our parents. And we realized, early in our lives, that by using our names people had control over us. All my mother had to do was say, “Jeff, stop jumping on the furniture”, and I knew that she had control over me. When I went to school my teacher knew to learn the names of the kids quickly so that she would have control over the class. She would say things like “Jeff, pay attention”, and I knew that I better stop talking to my friend. Knowing someone’s name means, is some sense, that you have control over that person.
Now we have no control over God. God will do whatever God will do. That’s what it means to be God. So went we invoke God’s name in prayer we must not try to control God. Rather, in prayer, we approach God with reverence and humility and ask God for what we need. We are not trying to control God. We are not trying to get God to do what we want. Rather we are attempting to communicate with God and ultimately find out what God wants from us.
So one way to properly use God’s name is to use it with respect and humbly ask for what we need in prayer. Another way is to be truthful when taking an oath in a court of law.
We have all seen courtroom dramas where someone places his hand on the Bible and pledges “to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God!” When we promise to tell the truth in the name of God we must tell the truth. To lie in that circumstance is a clear violation of the third commandment. Consider the predicament Aaron, Moses’ brother, got in when he lied. While Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the ten commandments from God, the people became impatient and demand a golden calf to worship. Aaron made a calf for them. But Moses was angry when he saw the calf and demanded an explanation from his brother. And here is what Aaron said:
Exodus 32:22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”
“Out came this calf?” What kind of explanation it that? Someone else did it? I don’t know what happened. But Aaron knew exactly what he had done. And three thousand people lost their lives because of Aaron’s lie. He misused that name of the Lord by not telling the truth in a court of law. So we learn from this that if we put our hand on the Bible and promise to tell the truth we better be truthful to be in compliance with the third commandment.
So we have seen that we are to approach God in prayer with humility and reverence and we must always tell the truth if we have taken an oath to tell the truth in the name of God. Another thing we must do to not misuse God’s name is to do what we promise to do.
The Bible is filled with vows, promises to do something. Consider this vow made by Jacob.
Genesis 28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
God was faithful to Jacob and did all that was promised. So Jacob was required by his vow to be faithful, worship in God’s house and tithe, 10% of his income. If Jacob refused to do these things he would have misused the name of God. But Jacob was faithful and he did what he promised. So too with us. God blesses us richly in so many ways. And we are faithful, worship each Sunday, and give to the glory of God in fulfillment to our vow. If we didn’t we would be in violation of the third commandment and would be misusing God’s name.
So when we pray we approach God with reverence and awe, we tell the truth when we make an oath, and we follow through on any vow we make in God’s name. Another aspect of using God’s name correctly is that we must never use God’s name profanely.
The is an old story about a Christmas pageant. A young girl was participating for the first time. And after a rehearsal, she went up to a teacher and asked, “Why did the angel name God’s son with a curse word?” Blasphemy! Using GD or JC as profanity! All of this would be a violation of the third commandment. Consider this story about the son of Shelomith:
Leviticus 24:10 Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. 11 The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) 12 They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.
13 Then the Lord said to Moses: 14 “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. 15 Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; 16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.
So using God’s name as a curse word is a clear violation of the third commandment.
Let’s sum up what we have learned so far. When we invoke God’s name in prayer we must do so humbly and with reverence. When we make an oath or a vow God’s name we must tell the truth and do what we promise. And we must never use God’s name profanely.
Because of Moses’ command that those who misuse God’s name be stoned to death people became afraid to say God’s name. They substituted the word “LORD” whenever they read the name of God in the Hebrew scriptures. This tradition is continued in the English translations we use here in church. Whenever you read “LORD” in capital letters in the Old Testament remember that God’s actual name is recorded in the original Hebrew text. The name of God is never used in the New Testament. But there is a name for God’s Son in the New Testament. And we are told to always pray in this name. Of course, the name of God I am talking about is Jesus, in whose name we pray. We can do this without violating the third commandment because Jesus taught us how to pray. This is what Jesus said:
Matthew 6:9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
So we are to use the holy name of God properly when we pray. We speak to God with respect calling him “Our Father”. And we are to keep God’s name holy. We are to use God’s name not for our own purposes, but for God purposes. God’s name is not magic. We don’t use it as a spell to get something we want. Rather prayer is a way to communicate with God expressing what we need and finding out what God wants from us.
So we boldly pray in Jesus’s name. We approach God filled with awe and respect. We testify truthfully when we have made an oath on the Bible. We fulfill the vows we have made to God. We never use God’s name profanely. And we invoke God’s name not for our own purposes but for God’s holy desires. Let’s do it. Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, we approach your throne of Grace filled with humility and respect. We promise to be truthful and faithful in fulfilling our oaths and vows. Help us to do what you would have us do here in Middletown. All this we pray in the glorious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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