Today I want to focus in on the 3rd Commandment. If I had to guess, I would bet a lot of you are familiar with this one. But the reason I want to talk about it is because it is so incredibly misunderstood.
If you've been around church for a while, you
were probably taught this one. I know I was, and this commandment had a very
specific application that went along with it. Unfortunately, it may have been
the wrong application. But I can remember this commandment being drilled in my
head: “You shall not misuse the name of
the Lord your God" (Exodus
20:7 NIV).
I was taught, and maybe you were too, that
according to this commandment, when you lose your temper, when you get upset,
angry or stub your toe, you’re not supposed to yell out God's name or His Son's
name. Oh, and while you’re at it, you aren't supposed to ask God if He would
curse or damn something with His name attached either. Are you with me?
Now I want to stop and think about this for a
minute because if we really spend some time on this, we will realize how silly
this application sounds next to the other commandments we have already covered.
I mean, God has given the big Ten here, the top 10 things He wants to make sure
Israel gets right. And He gets to number three and says, “Thou shall not call
out My name when you lose your temper”? Could that really be what that means?
Before He tells us not to murder or steal, God says, “Hey, don’t yell out My
name!”? But what if it doesn't mean that? Now, I’ll be honest, I still think it's a bad
thing to yell out God's name or to yell out Jesus' name when you lose your
temper. But my feelings on that have nothing to do with this commandment. I
think it’s just disrespectful.
“You
shall not misuse the name of the Lord
your God, for
the Lord will not hold anyone
guiltless who misuses His name.” (Exodus 20:7, NIV)
Reading that, don’t you think there could be more to
this commandment than saying God’s name in a fit of rage? The NIV has the word “misuse”; in other words, don’t abuse, mishandle or, and
this one is really important, exploit the name of God. More comes to mind than
just cursing when I hear this. This means we are not to associate God’s name
with something God is not associated with. Let’s take it one step farther. It
also means don't leverage the name of God in order to accomplish something God
has nothing to do with. That is abusing His name. That is mishandling His name.
That is exploiting His name. Don't use God to accomplish your means; don't use
the name of God to get your way. That is misusing the name of God.
He wants us to be careful about what we say
about Him and what we attribute to Him. What we say and what we attribute
reflect on His character, so we better be sure we reflect His character
accurately.
Want to know something interesting? The maddest
Jesus ever gets in the New Testament is when He walks into the temple and finds
men in the outer courts changing money and selling sacrificial animals to poor
people for a huge profit. The animals being sold aren't even the animals God
said could be sacrificed. He clearly stated in the Old Testament which animals
would be a suitable sacrifice and how the sacrifices should be prepared.
Basically, these religious leaders allowed other
people to come into the temple and abuse the system to enrich themselves. So
when Jesus walks into the temple, He is furious. He saw the religious leaders
leveraging the name of God and leveraging the Law. In other words, they were
exploiting it. Luke 19 describes it this way: Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were
selling (v. 45 NIV). Then Jesus says to the religious leaders, “It is written . . . 'My house will be a
house of prayer'; but you have made it a 'den of robbers'” (Luke 19:46 NIV).
In other words, Jesus is saying, “You have
managed to break the eighth commandment, which says, “Thou shall not steal”;
you've bypassed My Father's desire to have this temple be a holy place; you've
violated the clear teachings of My Father by coming up with a system that
allows you to steal from the people. And you are doing it all in My name!” See,
when people showed up at the temple they assumed it was all legitimate business.
They trusted what the religious leaders were asking of them. But the religious
leaders were exploiting the name, intent and character of God, and Jesus was furious.
If you stay in the habit or if you get in the
habit of dodging the Law of God in the name of God, ultimately you will miss
God.
So here's my question—in your own little world,
in your own little way, do you try to leverage God against Himself? In your own
little way, in your own little world, are there things you know God doesn't want you to do, places He doesn't want you to go? But you justify it, twist it,
to make it okay? You may not be thinking about it at the time, but you’re
violating the third commandment. And I don’t know what all of the ramifications
for this look like, but I do know as long as you are dodging the will of God in
the name of God, as long as you are dodging the morality of God, as long as
you're dodging the Law of God, as long as you are dodging the commands of God,
you won't know Him.
If you don’t put a stop to the cycle, you’ll
go on hearing people talk about this personal relationship with God and you’ll
always wonder, “Why can't I experience that?” The only way to do that is to be
honest and say, “God, I want to do that sin, but I'm not going to pretend like
it's okay with you anymore. God, I want to be in that relationship, and I'm
going to be honest and say You probably don't want me to be in that relationship.
I'm just telling you I'm not going to pretend like somehow You want me to be
happy regardless of the cost. I’m not going to play that game anymore.”
And if you make that decision, I have a feeling
that the God who loves you will penetrate your stubborn heart and get control
of your life.
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