The Big Ten: A God by Any Other Name
OK, this is week three in our series
on the Ten Commandments, and as you just heard, the third commandment is “do
not misuse the name of the Lord your God,” or you may have heard it as, “do not
take the name of the Lord in vain.” Now, the ancient Hebrew name for God as we
can most clearly guess was Yahweh. When you are reading your old testament,
that usually appears in English as the LORD, all capital letters. Now I say
that’s a guess, because they never really wrote it out. The Hebrews were so
afraid of misusing God’s name, that they would never say it. Instead they
called him Adonai, or master. And they never fully wrote it out, because they
were afraid if they made a typo, it would be considered a sin. They just used
the consonants: yod, heh, waw, heh, or as we would translate it into English,
YHWH. So we have to guess a little bit as to what the vowels would have been,
and we’ve come up with the name Yahweh, or as some have translated it, Jehovah.
But I think maybe the Hebrews went
about this commandment the wrong way. I don’t think that’s what God was talking
about when he said, “Do not misuse my name.” I don’t think he was worried about
typos or whatever, but the Hebrews figured, well if we never use his name at
all, then we’ll never misuse it.” Today when we think about this commandment, I
think the thing that usually comes to mind is that we shouldn’t say, “Oh, my
God,” or say, “God” followed by several expletives. Right? Isn’t that what we
think of when we hear this commandment? And I think that is definitely part of
what this commandment is talking about, we shouldn’t use God’s name that way,
that is obviously a misuse of the name of God, and really, as Christians, we
have no business talking that way. If you think about it, it sounds really stupid.
I mean, insert any other name in there instead of God, and see if it makes any
sense. Someone cuts you off in traffic, “Bob! What’s wrong with you!” Or you
hit you thumb with a hammer, “Oh my Jimmy, that hurt!” It sounds stupid. And it
sounds stupid when you use God’s name. So stop it. There’s your lecture for the
day.
I think that’s what we usually think
of when we hear, “Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God,” but there are
other ways that we misuse his name that I think are just as bad and fall under
this commandment. I think a lot of times the way we misuse God’s name is by
putting God’s name behind something to make it stronger for our own gain.
Let me ask you this: Have you ever
been caught in a lie, and you start fumbling with your words, but you come up
with the ultimate thing that they can’t challenge, your ultimate argument. You
say: “I didn’t do it, I swear to God.”
Did you just use God’s name to cover up a lie? Now it’s more than a lie, that’s
a misuse of God’s name.
Another way I think we misuse God’s
name for our own gain is by throwing it behind our business or cause. It’s
pretty unbelievable to me as I sit in my office how many phone calls from
telemarketers targeting churches that I get. They’re trying to sell me all
sorts of stuff, from audio-visual equipment to updated directories to furniture
and software and curriculum. It’s pretty out of control. Now obviously all of
these companies are doing this to make a living, but it’s interesting, I can
always tell the ones who actually believe what they are selling can make an
eternal difference, they believe in what they are selling, and the ones who are
playing the “God card” just to make
buck. I think that’s a misuse of God’s name.
Holly baby-sits, like 70 kids or
something. They’re coming out of the woodwork at our house. I try to hide down
in my office as much as possible, but every now and then when I get the courage
up to go upstairs and see what’s going on, I’ll hear one kid say to another
kid, “Holly said that’s my toy.” Or “Holly said you have to give me that.” When
Holly has said nothing of the sort. They are just using the power of Holly’s
name to give themselves more power.
And people have been doing this with
God for ages. People like Hitler and David Koresh and the KKK and more recently
Warren Jeffs have invoked the name of God to do some heinous, awful things.
Saying, “God told me to annihilate an entire race” or “God told me that it was
ok to marry off these little girls,” that’s wrong. Any time you use God’s name
to justify doing something morally wrong, that’s a misuse of God’s name. And I
tell you this not so much to say, “Make sure you don’t do that,” but more
because we as Christians need to watch out for those who are doing these
things, and we need to be bold enough to stand up and say, “No, God did not say
that. You are misusing the name of God.”
So, you know, there are several
different ways that people have been misusing the name of God. But as with all
of the Ten Commandments, I think there is a deeper meaning behind this
commandment not to misuse God’s name. There’s a reason, it’s not just some rule
God decided to make up for the fun of it. I really believe, in case you haven’t
started to catch the pattern yet, that the Ten Commandments are more than just
a list of “Thou shalt nots.” It’s more than a list of no-no’s. I think each
rule, each commandment, is designed to show us just how much God loves us. Rule
one: have no other God’s before you. Why? Because he is madly, deeply in love
with us and wants to be the number one priority in our lives. Have no idols.
Why? Because God’s miracles and the things that he does for us should be enough
proof of his existence and his love without having to make a statue of him.
So why don’t we misuse the name of
God? Well, to answer this question, first you have to know what the name of God
is, and I already mentioned before that the Hebrew name for God is Yahweh. But
beyond that, there are many, even hundreds of other names and titles for God
found in the scriptures.
Has anyone ever seen the movie, “The Sandlot?” It’s a
story about some boys back in 1950’s
In 2 Kings 19, King Hezekiah was
praying, and he said, “You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.”
But the word he used for God wasn’t Yahweh, it was El Chay, which means, “The
Living God.” Hezekiah wanted to make the point that he wasn’t praying to just
some idol or statue, he was praying to the one and only living God.
In Jeremiah 17, the prophet Jeremiah
calls God Miqweh Yisrael, “The Hope of
And like I said there are hundreds of
these instances in the scripture where the different names of God reveal
something new to us about who God is and how much he loves us.
And that is so humbling to me. That
Elohim, the creator of the universe, knows my name. That El Elyon, the Lord
Most High, knows the number of hairs on my head. I want to sing a song for you
now. This song is called “Your Names.” And I think it really captures the way
in which God has spoken to and reached out to people where they are in their
particular time of need throughout history, how he is big enough that he can
handle any situation and be Lord over the universe, and still know my name, and
your name.
“Your
Names”
That just makes me feel so small, and
yet so important to God. Like, in the big scheme of things, I’m nothing, but to
God, I’m everything. Like when I put two names together, like Elohim, God the
Mighty Creator, and El Roi, the God who sees me, that just blows me away. That
the creator of the world sees me. Or the name Melek, which means King, and the
name that Jesus used for God on the cross, Abba, which is like Father, or more
precisely, daddy.
The more I learn about the names of
God, the more I realize how beautiful his name is. And to me, when I say “God,”
I’m including all these names that have been spoken throughout time. Father,
Creator, Strong tower, Consuming Fire, King, the Lord who Heals, and all the
other names, for me they are all summed up in the name “God.”
So then when that name is misused,
when it is made light of or used for profanity, I mean that is slander. Like
when we claim righteousness for ourselves by misusing God’s name, when we say
things like, “I’m right because God says so” or “God is on my side,” the we
slander God, Yahweh Tsidqenu, the Lord of Righteousness. Like Rich Mullins
said, “God is right, the rest of us are just guessing.”
Look, God’s name is not just his name.
God’s name is a description, it’s a way that God reveals to us who he is, what
he has done for us, and how much he loves us. And to make light of that, to use
it flippantly, to just casually through around the name of God as a curse word
or for our own gain, is a slap in the face to the God who is just trying to
show us how much he loves us.
Speaking God’s name is a gift and a
privilege. That we can call out the name of the one who placed the stars in the
sky and the one who David himself called, Yahweh Roi, “My Shepherd,” that is an
honor. To be on a first name basis with Jesus’ Abba, “Daddy,” is a blessing. So
I urge you, respect the name of God, don’t misuse it. It is there for you, to
display God’s glory and power so that through his name, you may come to see
just how much he truly loves you.
Pastor
Dan Metzger
Van
Buren United