Word of Salvation – Vol.11 No.39 – October 1965
The Heavy Name
Sermon by Rev. T. E. Tyson on Exod. 20:7
Scripture Reading: John 14:8-21
Psalter Hymnal: 118; 66:1,2,3,7; 160; 282; 488
Beloved Congregation of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
Tarry in thought with me today at Sinai’s mountain. We have remembered before the sanctity of God’s being – the first Commandment, and the sanctity of the worship of God – the second Commandment; now today we arrive at the third word which thundered forth from heaven on that awesome day: the sanctity of God’s name.
First I want to read to you an extraordinary account in the book of Leviticus of an event that occurred in the camp of the Israelites, which will serve to underline for us the value that God does place on His great and holy Name.
“And the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelite woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:) and they put him in ward, that the mind of the LORD might be showed them. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.” (Leviticus 24:10-16)
Now I ask you: Why such importance? Why did he have to die, just for a few words that slipped off his tongue? I’ll tell you. Human speech is an exceptionally generous gift from the Lord, our Creator. It sets us apart from the animals, as far as the communication of ideas and plans, are concerned. Especially today are the various means of communication most marvellous to behold: the telephone, tape recorder, wireless, Television yes, the satellite. But, now – just what does man say, when he uses these wonderful inventions with which he is blessed by God’s providence? How do we use our gift of speech? Well, words are cheap, aren’t they? Often empty and frivolous – and too often downright profane. What if people always spoke the way they sometimes speak? How would you like to hear typical shop washroom language and speech as part of the wireless news broadcast? How would you like gutter-talk on the lips of children’s story-tellers?
The Bible says, “Let your speech be always with grace,” and the believer prays for a clean tongue: “Let the words of my mouth… be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my Redeemer.” And perhaps the most weighty indictment resting upon our generation is this one, which our Lord issued, “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” He said that to the Pharisees, because they were under the mistaken impression that they were in pretty good shape – judgment-wise – because they were righteous in their own eyes. They failed to appreciate the far-reaching nature of the law of God. Just little words, Pharisees, just little idle words – they are enough.
Why all this emphasis upon speech, anyway? Because speech is our soul’s mirror or window. It lets out and reflects what we are inside. That is why John said that Jesus is the WORD. He is the Word of God, or the Speech of God. He shows us what God is like. And our words show others what we are like – for even the hypocrite’s words will eventually be seen for what they truly are, if not by man, then surely at last by God.
Beloved, the third commandment is the commandment which has to do with speech. But, Oh, some will say, does not the commandment deal only with certain abuses of speech, such as profanity and blasphemy? Well, with that it certainly does deal! And how the peoples of earth need to repent of this dreadful sin! But remember, each of the Ten Commandments deals with a large and important area of life, not with just one particular sin or another. Now, to be sure, particular sins are underlined and highlighted but only as they are symptoms of a deeper and more serious disease. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” means: “Let all your speech about God be reverent and in order to serve a useful purpose.
Do not fling about His holy name, His work of creation, His works of providence, His book of the Bible, His Word Jesus Christ – as common things. Do you know why it is that the beloved Name of our Saviour sounds so horrible when it is used profanely – why it jars our sensitivity and causes righteous indignation to rise up within us when we hear it used blasphemously? I’ll tell you: because it’s being used in vain, that’s why. For nothing. Without purpose. Just tossed into the sentence like a dead fish. Yes, we all know what blasphemy is, and how abhorrent it is.
But have we remembered that all of life is basically religious? Have we remembered that we are to do all things in the Name of Christ? To the glory of God the Father? And if we are to do whatsoever we do to the glory of God, then that means, as far as speech is concerned, that we must do far more than just avoid outright swearing! Brothers and sisters, the name of God is sacred and the purpose of speech is to reflect the glory of God’s name! Whatever the particular subject of our talking might be – never mind – we take God’s name whenever we open our mouths. That’s Reformed – I should say – biblical truth. Did you say, “Two plus two equals four”? Then you took God’s name upon your lips because it was the LORD who made it so, for his own glory. Our concern ought to be: Does my mouth speak forth thy praise, O LORD? Is my speech – yes, my common speech – flavoured always with grace?
So, Congregation of the LORD, the biblical principle that is underlined and highlighted for us in this third commandment is just this one: THE SANCTITY OF GOD’S NAME PRESERVED. Let us consider, firstly,
- The Use Of The Name Of God.
Let us put the Third Commandment around, in positive form. It would then be: “Thou shalt take the Name of the LORD thy God purposefully.” ‘In vain’ means, ‘for no purpose’, as in Psalm 60:11, “Vain is the help of man,” or Psalm 127:1, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it.’ We are to use, or take, God’s Name purposefully. Then we notice that ‘take’ means literally to lift up,’ as in Exodus 10:19 where we read that the wind ‘took up’ the locust of Egypt, or in Joshua 3:6, where the Levites took up the ark of the Covenant. Again, the Israelites ‘took up’ twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, and the men ‘took up’ Jonah and cast him forth into the sea. We are to lift up God’s name. We are to lift it up for a purpose. And that is the thing that speech is all about. Speaking God’s Speech after Him. We can start with the obvious: speech in our worship of God. But what about our table talk at home, our social conversation, Bible Class discussions, and all the rest of our talking? Just how careful are we to ‘lift up the name of God’ with all our words? Oh, you well know that we do that even when we don’t actually use one of God’s Names. Whenever we talk – about Him, about His works, about his ordinances, about His blessings – in other words, all of the time – we are taking His name, we are lifting it up. And the Third Commandment just requires that we do it not in vain but purposefully, that is, to the praise of His glorious grace.
And it’s not just in preaching or witnessing that we use God’s name for a purpose, remember that for sure. We can easily fail to lift up God’s name purposefully even in preaching and witnessing so-called, if we don’t root out all those idle words, all that wasteful talking, all that purposeless babble that dishonours God’s holy Name.
But there is a particular use of God’s name – and usually when it is found, the place is a court of law, or the time is the ceremony of marriage or the administration of the sacrament, or the making of public profession of faith. I am speaking of oaths and vows. An oath is an appeal to God to witness the truth of what we speak. A vow is a promise made to God: it is a form of speech, either oral in the hearing of men, or silent in the hearing of God. Again, let it be observed, both the oath and the vow lift up the name of God. They take it. They call upon God to witness the future, or our testimony they honour him as Judge. And the Bible teaches the proper use of them: “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve Him, and shalt swear by His name. (Deuteronomy 6:13). The Patriarchs swore by the name of God. Paul said, “I call God for a record upon my soul.” David made his vows to God. The Israelites vowed to spare the Gibeonites. Our Lord. took an oath before Annas, at the time of his trial. And God Himself swore, when He found no higher, by His own Self. And our Lord’s words, in Matthew 5, “Swear not at all,” must be understood, therefore, in the light of the biblical context. There Jesus was condemning all the irreverent, needless, disguised oaths and vows of the Pharisees. He meant, if you can’t swear seriously and purposefully, then don’t swear at all. You don’t need to take an oath over every little thing you say. In fact, when you do, you make God’s name common and profane. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is sufficient.
Therefore, we may rightfully take God’s Name in proper oaths, and make vows unto Him. The Covenanters of Scotland did it, as a community, promising God that in their time, place, and particular circumstance they would obey God rather than men. The Nazarites of old practiced their vows unto Jehovah.
Perhaps we might also well consider in our consciences whether we shall make further promises to God. Perhaps of dedication of our time, money, talent, in a special service of the Lord. Remember, this is a personal matter. No one can or may do it for you. You are judged of no man’s conscience – it’s between you and God alone. But maybe you will, like those Nazarites of old, voluntary abstain from the use of things not evil in themselves, in order to give yourself more and more unto His service? But of this we can speak no further. It is over to you. God requires no peculiar and personal vows from you, but He invites you to make any and all vows that are conceived in faith, born in love, and brought to fruition by the Spirit of God.
Now, let us consider, secondly,
- The Abuse Of The Name Of God.
Perjury, of course. We think of that immediately. Perjury is the use of God’s Name to support a lie. It too is a terrible sin, even civil governments everywhere recognize its heinous and diabolical character.
But will we stop and allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of our hypocrisy here? How many times have we used God’s name right in this very hour of worship? And have we used it always (in every verse of every Psalm and hymn, for instance) to reflect what is in our hearts? Have we only used God’s name to support the truth? Or have we perjured ourselves? How many times have we perjured ourselves by lifting up God’s name – yes, here and now – in vain, for nothing, because there was nothing inside our hearts to back up those words? When there was no truth at all for our words to support? Look! Let’s be honest with ourselves and with God. Just how much does our religion really mean to us? I mean really. We bear God’s name. We lift it up. But, I ask you, what for? I think all the bars are down here in this Third Commandment, Brothers and Sisters.
This word from Sinai slays us, even as the tenth one slew Paul – I say, the third commandment slays us for our looseness in life, our playing at church, our hypocrisy. God knows. I don’t think I need waste time telling you to take God’s name – you already do that. Everybody does. We are all image-bearers of Him, and we take His Name around with us all the time. And, whether we like it or not, we all of us lift up God’s name one way or the other. But I’m quite sure that we all of us need to be told about just how we lift up the Name of the LORD. Yes, we need to be told, here and now – by the Holy Spirit.
And the answer we give to Him when He brings home to us the crushing demands of this commandment is all-important. God will have no mercy on the unrepentant – that He says right in the Commandment itself: “For the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.” But His ear is open to the cry of the one who confesses, “Oh LORD, I take your name in vain daily. I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus, but I don’t always and fully believe in my heart. Make me real, O God, make me whole.” That prayer He hears, and that one praying He does hold guiltless, for Jesus sake!
But then there is profanity also. Not the obscenities, the filthy talk, especially – God will deal with those things later when He brings us to the seventh word, you know: that one about the sanctity of marriage and sex. But we are thinking now about those light uses of God’s name, if not the clear and obvious ones, then the so-called minced oaths, the subtle use of Divine names that are just altered enough to ‘make them clean’, so-to-say. We must purge them from our vocabulary, Children of the LORD! He will not have us falling in step with the flippant, common talk of our day. Let us witness to the sanctity of our God’s glorious name by avoiding all the Gosh’s and Gee’s’, and the rest, that offend His majesty and despise His holiness. Our mouths sometimes get us into a great deal of trouble, don’t they?
Congregation of the LORD, when we use God’s Name, does anything come of it? Does He receive the praise of our hearts as well as of our mouths? Do we herald forth the glad tidings of the Gospel? Do we praise His glorious grace? Do we seek to bring it unto the cars of others? How about it? Remember, “There is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Beloved Friends, HIS NAME IS HEAVY.
It takes all the strength that God in grace provides the Christian, to carry that name, to lift it up, to take it through life. To tread down Our Saviour’s ordinances, to treat His word and Grace as things light and of little consequence, to flaunt His commands and forget His promises – to do all this or any of it is to grind our teeth on the third Commandment!
“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.”
Christian friends, let us take the Name of God FOR EVERYTHING!
Let us look at Him in the face of His Son Jesus Christ, and say with all our hearts “My LORD and my God!” And then ask Him for strength to lift up that Name which is above every name, that name which alone brings salvation to lift up that Name before a profane world.
Amen.