Sermon by Rev. Brian Keith

Lessons: Leviticus 24:10-16; Revelation 3:7-13; True Christian Religion 297, 298

Sermon: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him innocent who takes His name in vain” Exodus 20:7.

Is there any other commandment that is so openly broken as this one? Is there any other commandment that is so openly ignored? Is there any other commandment that seems so unimportant to people today?

Our culture has made the Lord’s name in all of its many manifestations commonplace. Lord, God, Jesus Christ are heard constantly when the speaker has absolutely no intention of calling the Divine to mind.

One only needs to see a few movies or even walk through a mall and overhear the conversations of pre-teenagers to realize how pervasive is the abuse of the Lord’s name. His name is used casually without thought of what it means or what it could mean.

Using the Lord’s name in vain without intending to is bad enough, but what is worse is that it is often connected with hellish things. When someone is swearing, when someone has anger or even hatred towards another what are the odds that the Lord’s name is going to find its way into that stream of invectives? How often is the Lord’s name used as an adjective in conjunction when a person is describing some hellish trait they seen in another?

Does using the Lord’s name give the message greater punch? Other than showing one’s limited vocabulary--does it prove how serious one is? Hard to believe since it is used so often. And does anyone really think that because he would like to see someone miserable and damned in hell that God wants to do it to that person too?

Now we know that abusing the Lord’s name in common speech is not done intentionally with malice of forethought by most people. People who otherwise lead exemplary lives may take the Lord’s name in vain from unconscious habit or just because they have been in the presence or sphere of others who do it. It’s very easy to fall into. Those people are not trying to tarnish the Lord’s name. They are not even intending to break one of the Ten Commandments; they are not thinking about that.

So it may appear to us that this commandment is one of the lesser commandments. One that we really don’t have to work as hard at keeping as for instance the commands against lying, thievery, adultery, or certainly murder. After all how bad is it really? Good people do it. And it doesn’t seem to hurt anyone.

But the Lord is not foolish. He knew how easy it would be to take His name in vain. Truly if it weren’t that important He would not have included it in one of the ten fundamental principles of life--principles that are leading us to be happy forever.

Using the Lord’s name where it does not belong, joining it together and mixing it with gross and natural things, does do tremendous harm to it. Although unintended by most people, it has the affect of degrading and dirtying our image of the Lord. Like calling policemen “pigs” in the late 1960s to depersonalize them and to make it seem like they are unworthy of respect, so using the Lord’s name commonly makes it difficult for us to feel close to Him or have any sense that He is Human--truly Human.

And we should recognize that this occurs whether we are doing it ourselves or whether we hear other people do it. For we are affected by those around us. Either we are going to tend to fall into similar speech patterns or we are going to have to expend energy and effort to overlook what the others are saying. Neither of those produces a great deal of good in our lives.

It’s interesting how important this was to the Ancient Jews. Consider the story from Leviticus about the young man who was in a fight and who is cursing using the Lord’s name. They caught him and asked the Lord what should be done with him. The answer was very sure, very swift: anyone who heard was to place a hand on his head and then they were to kill the man who cursed by stoning him. That’s how serious blasphemy--using the Lord’s name in vain--is.

Now the reason that it is so serious and it’s one of the Ten Commandments is that to take His name in vain profanes what He is. Profanation is the mixing together of what is holy with what is not holy. Now it doesn’t sound very serious at first but the results of doing that are. When the things which are meant to have a special place in our lives such as our Creator, marriage, the Word and the things of the Church are mingled with natural, unimportant and then evil things it brings them down to the point where they just can’t have as much value in our lives.

A newly married couple would not enjoy crude jokes about marriage or sex because the love they are feeling at that moment is so precious and so strong to them. They wouldn’t want the pearls of marriage cast before swinish attitudes that are harmful to what they know they feel in their hearts can bring them the greatest amount of joy possible on this earth. And that is what profanation really does. It brings together what is beautiful and what is ugly and destroys the beauty that is there. As throwing black paint on a magnificent painting will destroy the art and not really improve the appearance of the black paint, so abusing the Lord’s name dirties it and certainly doesn’t improve the level of the conversation.

Then when we need His presence, when we have a need to call upon Him, seeking His comfort, seeking His guidance, how are we to think of Him? How are we to call upon His name when we have effectively banished it by the offhand way in which it is used? As His name is reduced to the commonplace, we lessen our sensitivity to Him and to the power that He might have in our lives.

We have so far discussed that taking the Lord’s name in vain is most openly done in casual conversation and in swearing. But less obviously yet just as importantly His name is taken in vain whenever we mistreat what comes from Him. For a person’s name is relatively unimportant. After all we only retain actual names in this world; in the other world we gain new names, the Lord’s name for us that describes our qualities. A name here on earth is simply a way to call a person to mind or to call their qualities to mind. The Lord’s name involves more than a word or two, it means His life, who He is

The Lord’s name is abused also when we mistreat anything that we have been given by Him. You can see this very easily with the Word. Jokes which are based on stories, characters or situations in the Word are a mild form of profanation. They detract from the Word its power because thereafter we are going to find it a little bit more difficult to disassociate that humor from the Word.

This also happens whenever any of the true ideas that we have embraced which tell us how to lead a good, moral life are neglected. When they are cast aside or mistreated that’s also the Lord’s name being taken in vain.

It’s also done when we hypocritically accept the Word as our guide but then disregard it in some area of our lives. It is His truths which would lead us into happiness, into joy, and profanation renders them ineffective. And we can also take the Lord’s name in vain when we deny what we have from Him. When we are so pleased with our own bright ideas and noble actions that we, in a sense, abuse Him. To say that what is true and what is good comes from us not the Lord is to take the qualities of His name and not attribute them to Him but to bring them down to our level, mixing them with things that really don’t belong there. Taking credit from Him is taking His name in vain.

Because all these forms of taking the Lord’s name in vain are so destructive, the Lord works as hard as He can to prevent profanation from occurring. The people who do use the Lord’s name openly in a pointless, vain way the Lord protects by closing off their minds to Him. By removing from them when they are using His name in vain any sense that they are thinking about the Lord, He makes it so that less damage is done to them. Yes, they are thereby deprived of feeling close to the Lord at that time but they are not in active states of profanation because the Lord has drawn away the sense of the holiness of that word, that name.

The Lord ensures also that we are never given too much to handle. He is not going to permit someone to accept the truths of the Word, the goods of the Church unless the Lord perceives that that person can remain in them throughout his or her life. When the Lord perceives that a person is bent on a hellish action, He draws up those knoweldges which would say it’s wrong and it’s evil. So that when the person is committing the sin, he is not thinking ‘I’m breaking one of the commandments.’ He is not thinking that at all. The Lord has drawn it up so that that truth may descend later, creating some sense of remorse, some sense of guilt to trigger repentance and a better way of life. So the Lord protects when there is evil, when the Lord’s name is abused.

Now in addition, the Lord would have us make use of His name as it should be made use of. When we say the Lord’s Prayer, each time we say: “hallowed be Thy name,” we are saying “Lord we want Your name to be holy.” Each time we are saying it we are recognizing the importance His name and all His qualities can have in our life. Now it doesn’t mean that we are to so elevate His name that we are in awe or in fear of it. This is what happened with the Ancient Jews. For them to keep the name Jehovah holy, they were not allowed to say it or write it in any way that it could be erased or defaced. Like the ark which could not be touched, their god became distant and frightening to them.

The Lord certainly doesn’t want this kind of relationship with us. We have the ability and the opportunity to speak His name with our lips and with our lives. Worship itself provides many occasions. We pray to Him, recognizing our dependence upon Him and His willingness to help. We sing psalms to Him. We sing praise to Him. Thinking about the words as we are singing can call to mind different qualities that He has. And as we hear His name declared in lessons and in sermons we can learn and grow in our awareness of His caring and of His Providence. We can increase our respect and love for Him as we then incorporate His name into our daily lives. It can be done very easily: reading the Word, reading other literature that’s about Him, about the Church. And we can take the effort to speak His name openly--perhaps with children or with friends. It’s not hard to casually mention the beautiful day which the Lord has made. And is it ever inappropriate to wonder about why the Lord permits something bad to happen? Or to wonder what good the Lord is bringing out of this particular situation?

We may not be accustomed to speaking that way at first. It can seem difficult and even uncomfortable. But if we make that effort and try it a few times, we can increase our sense of His presence in our lives--an awareness that yes, He is there, and He cares. Our lives themselves can speak His name.

As we struggle to follow in His way, each step we take on His path calls out to Him. Our religion, our light speaks His name with every true idea we understand and live. Every caring thing that we want to do for others, that we think to do for others and that we actually do calls upon Him. The Heavenly Doctrines note that God is in all things of religion and when invoked, He is present , and in such ways the name of God is kept holy.

If we call upon Him, His name becomes holier to us. This is why the Lord said ‘where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.’ When we are gathered together in worship, when we are gathered together in leading moral, spiritual lives, He is present. He is in our midst for we have invited Him into our lives. And there is tremendous strength and power for us when we make use of His name as He intended. When we call upon His name as we worship and when we speak His name with friends, with neighbors and with family and when we live a good life, our ability to keep His name holy in all the many ways increases. For when we are regularly using His name as we should, taking it in vain becomes less and less attractive to us.

Let us then keep this second commandment. A commandment which leads us to see the qualities of the Lord, to remember His role in our lives and to feel His presence. Let us not take any of His names in vain, that He might become fully our God and our Savior.