Taking God Seriously

Taking God Seriously

Fifth after Trinity

Collect of the Day: Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Homily Text: Exodus 20:7 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.

My maternal grandfather, William Walton Gingles, thought it important to have a “good name.”  A Biblical proverb agrees, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches” (Proverbs 22:1). My grandfather wanted to be known for simple virtues – a man who was honest, kept his word, provided for his family, and paid his bills on time. When people heard the name “Willie Gingles,” he wanted them to think, “He’s a good man.”

Protecting his name was important to my grandfather. It is infinitely more important to God. The LORD will not hold guiltless anyone who does not take his name seriously.

11.  The Holiness of the Name

If one of our boys were standing with an axe in hand by a tree I had planted, Susan might have said, “Your father won’t approve of that,” She meant, “Your dad will disapprove, and you’ll be in trouble.” When the commandment says, “The Lord will not hold him guiltless,” it is an indirect way of saying, “Be certain the LORD will hold him guilty who takes his name in vain.”

To understand how important God’s name is to him why he will punish those who misuse it, we need to look at one of those Old Testament stories we might wish were not in the Bible. In Leviticus 24 we find this story.

·         Two men got into a fight. One was the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man. The other was the son of two Israelites. And something shocking happened.

·        If we watch much TV or see movies, we likely won’t feel the shock the people of Israel experienced. But the Israelite people were very shocked. What happened?   The Bible says that during the fight the man of mixed parentage “blasphemed the Name, and cursed.” The man attacked God’s name as if he had taken a spear and thrust it through God.

·        What name of God did he use? He blasphemed the name “Yahweh” or, most English translations have it, “the LORD.” You remember when the LORD called Moses to go to Egypt to deliver the people from slavery and lead them to the land he has promised 400 years earlier to Abraham, Moses told the LORD, “When I go and say to your people that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you, they are going to ask, ‘What is his name?’ What am I supposed to say?” The Lord said, “ ‘Tell them I AM has sent me,’ for my name is I AM THAT I AM.” The LORD simply is – the self-existent, eternal, sovereign, unchanging God, who keeps his promises to his people. This is the most personal, self-revealing name of God, the name which he gave his people to use so they could call on him. The name “Yahweh” or “LORD” based on the name the LORD told Moses to use, “I AM THAT I AM.”

·   Later when Moses asked to see the LORD’s glory, the LORD answered: “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’” When the LORD passed, he proclaimed: “The Lord, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

·        The significance of God’s name “LORD” is that it stands for the LORD himself and everything he is. To call him LORD is to remember his character and all the works of salvation he has done for his people. His name is the “LORD” and there is no other god.

·        The Israelite people who witnessed the man’s blasphemy were shocked. They knew what he had done was very serious, but nothing like this had ever happened before. They took the man to Moses, but Moses had never handled a case like this one. It was clear the man had broken the Third Commandment, but what were they supposed to do when someone broke the Commandment? They took the man into custody until they could get some clear word from the LORD about what to do.

·        The LORD spoke to Moses with directions for handling this case. The LORD instructed:

“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.’”

·        This was a capital crime against God. This man was executed by stoning. This incident became part of Israel’s case law. The penalty for anyone who took the name of the LORD in vain, whether he was an Israelite, a foreigner, or of mixed ethnicity, was death.

People today who have been brought up to see themselves as victims and God as their therapist and helper. People demand fairness according to their definition of fairness, and they set boundaries even for God. It tempting to look at this incident and say, “That’s not fair. I can’t believe in a God who would have a man executed for cursing his Name.”

But this is the God of the Bible. There is no other God. We can’t have a God made to our specifications. So rather than protest, we should think seriously: To understand that we can’t put God in one category and his name in another. God reveals himself to us and invites us to know him by giving us his name. He tells us what a great sin it is to take his name in vain.

  2.  The Misuse of the Name

The name of God is God – who he is, what he says, and what he does as Creator, King, and Savior. The name of God includes the name of Jesus Christ for he is God in the flesh and has been given the name that is above every name – the name LORD.

We break this commandment any time we trivialize God, when we don’t take him seriously. What are some ways we are tempted to break this commandment?

·        Blasphemy. When we do what the man in Israel did – attack the name of the LORD. When we take the counsel of Job’s wife to “Curse God and die.” We may be tempted to do so when God does something that makes us question either his goodness or power, when we seemingly meaningless human calamities occur, when we face personal tragedies.

·        Careless Use. One of the most common ways we break this commandment is using God’s name without seriousness. It’s one thing to receive a happy surprise, and say, “Thank the Lord!” It another to say, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you did that for me!” It’s one thing to experience frustration and say, “Lord help me figure this out.” It is another to say, “God dammit, I can’t figure this out!” Better to use an earthy word than God’s name.

·        False Swearing. Jesus told us we should so consistently speak the truth that it is not necessary to say in ordinary speech, “I swear to God.” But there are times when it is appropriate to lift up God’s name to add seriousness to what we say. A clear example is if are called as a witness in court and swear in God’s name to speak the truth, knowing it is a great sin to lie. And, if in a serious conversation we say, “Now listen I am speaking God’s truth to you,” it better be God’s truth.

·        Meaningless Worship. We face the real possibility of using God’s name in vain when we worship in God’s name without our minds and hearts engaged - when he speaks to us by his Word, and we don’t listen; when we pray prayers and don’t have a clue what we just said, when we thoughtlessly sing a hymn; when we say the Creed but don’t believe; when we receive the Sacrament without understanding and faith.

Let us not end on the negative. God has given us his name for positive purposes.

·        Worship. Several times we told that Abraham moved to a new place, he built an altar, and called on the name of the Lord. The phrase “call on the name of the Lord” means to worship. Weekly we meet and call on the name of the Lord.

·        Praise. God has given us his name so that we may praise him. “O LORD our Lord how excellent is thy name in all the earth.”

·        Help. God gives us name so that we can trustfully call on him in the day of trouble. The Psalmist wrote: “(I) suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the Lord.”

·        Salvation. God has given us his name so that we may be saved. “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

Now let us follow the example of the Psalmist who asked, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” and answered his own question: “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”