Holding up three fingers can remind us of the third commandment. Three fingers can form a W which reminds us of words. The third commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain.” This deals with our words.
What does it mean to take the Name of God in vain? It means to use God’s Name carelessly, take it lightly, use it irreverently, etc. It is the opposite of treating God’s Name with great respect and fear.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 1:7
“But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.” Matthew 12:36
Some mistakenly believe that they can sin all they want and God won’t see it. They say He sees the blood of Christ instead. God says we will give an account for those words in the judgement . The child of God will face judgement at the judgement seat of Christ. We would do well to fear God.
Matthew 12:34b “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
Many of us have heard so much teaching and preaching that we have learned how to enjoy the lesson or the sermon and go out and forget it. It makes no change in our life. We mistakenly believe that because God doesn’t always pay on Friday we are getting away with our sin. After all, our sin is so minor in comparison with the other guy.
No sin is minor to a perfectly holy God! Many times we are casual and even flippant about our “little sins”. We laugh about them. For a holy God they are so serious that they separate us from God and Jesus had to be sacrificed to pay for them. Thus they are not funny.
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Galatians 6:7
So just what words are we talking about? We are talking about God, LORD, Jesus, Christ, my Word (who is the Word of Life?), my Goodness (there is none good but God), etc. You can list the ones I left out.
What about by-words or euphemisms? What is that??? They are words used to replace inappropriate words and they take on the same meaning as the word replaced. They are words like Gosh (God), Golly (God), Gee (Jesus), Geez (Jesus), Heck (you can guess), Darn (yeah, you know), Durn (same idea), etc, etc, etc.
The scriptures say we are to allow no corrupt communication to proceed out of our mouths.
For those of us who have mastered not taking God’s Name in vain we might want to work on the gossip that is so easy for us to fall into. Again, it is a heart issue and we need to take a look at our pride. We can’t look down on someone else unless we think we are better. Bridling the tongue requires purifying the heart. All of us could probably do better in this area. I need to take this sin seriously and do something about it.
Yes, we should keep the third commandment: “Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain.”
One Response
Wow, that’s a convicting post- even though I am careful about taking God’s name lightly, I often find myself not hating the “little” sins, and thinking that they aren’t big enough to really have much of a negative effect.
And can I ever listen to a good sermon appreciatively then go out and forget it. Ugh. I need to work on that, for sure.
Thank you for the exhortation!