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Cursing God - Part 2 of 2

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• All right, Exodus chapter 20, look if you would please at verse 7. The Scripture says, "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." So last week I began the first part of this message on cursing God, and this week I want to finish it up. So this is "Cursing God, Part 2." And so I pointed out in the first message that there is a difference between what you and I would call biblical curses and humanistic curses. We're forbidden to curse except to enunciate and proclaim the curses that God has proclaimed in His Word. And so the Scripture tells us in the book of Colossians chapter 4 and verse 6 that our speech is to be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that we may know how to answer every man.

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• So there's a good reason then, based upon the Scripture, as to why our yeas should be yea and our nays should be nay. And our Lord said, "Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is the throne of the great King; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by the hair of your head, because you can't make one hair white or black. But let your yeas be yea, and your nays be nay; for whatsoever cometh more of that is evil." So clearly then, there is a reason why we should say what we mean and mean what we say.

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• Now, biblical curses are found in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and 29, plus a lot of other passages in Scripture as well. But I mentioned last week how the Apostle Paul enunciated a curse in Galatians 1 verses 8 and 9. He said, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." So twice he's used the word "accursed." And it is the Greek word anathema, which means to be doomed, damned, and set apart for certain destruction. Now the interesting thing is the Apostle Paul did this again in 1 Corinthians 16 in verse 22, when he said, "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha"—that is, let him be accursed and doomed and damned at our Lord's returning. So in the very first message I dealt with the word "profane," and I pointed out how that you can be profane very easily and never curse.

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• All one has to do to be profane is to live your life as though God does not exist, or that God has not spoken. So profanity is far more than filthy and foul language. Profanity is basically a life that ignores, forgets, overlooks, and despises that which is right and holy. So I pointed out that our English word "profane" comes actually from the Latin. It's made up of two words: pro and fanum. Pro is a preposition which means "to" or "toward," and fanum is the word for "temple." So if you are outside and you are to and toward the temple, it just simply means that you're not inside. You are basically outside of the temple as well. That means you're outside of God, outside of God's law, outside of God's direction. Now, I also gave you the Greek word, and that word was bebelos. And I told you that's made up of two words. The first one is belos, which of course refers to a threshold. Every door has a threshold. And of course then the second part of the word is basis, which actually comes from the verb baino, which means "to walk" or "to step." And so actually, bebelos means to walk over or

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• to step over the threshold. It means then basically to go outside. So anyone then who is treating God as if He is not God is a profane person. We looked particularly last week at Esau. I'm not going over that again. Esau was classified as a profane person, and yet we were never told in the Scripture that he cursed or swore. But God's name and God's honor, God's service, God's ordinances, and God's worship may be polluted as well as profaned. Now there is a close connection between the word "profane" and the word "polluted." Many times in Scripture you will find that the word "profane" and the word "polluted" are from the same Hebrew word, kalal. However, there are different Hebrew words that are translated as "polluted" in our Bibles as well.

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• So there is a difference then between profanation and pollution. So let me just try to give you a brief illustration as to how you can discern the difference between profanation and pollution. Every sinner is under the condemnation of God. We have broken the law of God, we've violated His law, we've transgressed His commandments, and therefore we're under the penalty of the broken law. Now, it is true that the Scripture says that Christ has redeemed us from the law, that is, from the curse of the law, because we were under it, and therefore we were considered condemned, or we were under condemnation.

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• But sin not only condemns, it also pollutes. So in order for you and I to be right with God, then we need a minimum of two things. Number one, we need our condemnation dealt with, and that is taken care of in justification, where God looks at us through the person and work of Jesus Christ and pronounces us innocent in light of the law. And the reason He does so is because Christ bore our sins in His own body, the Scripture tells us, and so God imputes our sins to Jesus Christ and His righteousness to us. So justification then takes care of our condemnation, but then sanctification takes care of our pollution. So we're not only condemned as sinners, we're polluted as sinners, and we need both justification and sanctification as well. So today I want you to consider two things with me. First of all, I want you to consider the word "pollution" and its significance and how it applies to us today.

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• And then secondly, I'm going to show you exactly what it means when God says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." So let me say this again. To begin with, the word "profane" and the word "pollute" or "pollution" are sometimes translated from the same Hebrew word, kalal. Other times, there are different Hebrew words that refer to pollution. One of the main words is the word tamei. And it means that which is impure, that which is unclean, that which is defiled, and that which is polluted. So we need to look in the Scripture at some of these words so I can show you how it is used.

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• So I want you to turn in your Bibles if you would to 2 Kings chapter 23. 2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 16, and you'll see what King Josiah did. So 2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 16. It's a very interesting passage, especially when you know the background. 2 Kings chapter 23 and verse 16, the Scripture says, "And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent and took the bones of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words." So the interesting thing is, and if you want to read about the man of God from Judah who proclaimed these words, you can find that in 1 Kings chapter 13 and verse 2. But between 1 Kings chapter 13 and 2 Kings chapter 23, about 300 years had passed. And so, the Word of God tells us very plainly that time is not going to change the eternal decree of God, and nothing that man can do can stop God from fulfilling His decree,

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• and that which He has promised and prophesied. So those who are opposed to God and will not follow God shall be polluted themselves and destroyed just like this false altar was.

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• Now, if you would turn right over a couple books to 2 Chronicles chapter 36. 2 Chronicles chapter 36, and look if you would please at verse 14. We're going to come back to 2 Kings momentarily, but look in 2 Chronicles chapter 36 and verse 14. Watch this carefully because I'm going to ask you a good question. Verse 14: "Moreover all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem." So it was not just the priests. It was also the people who transgressed and polluted the house of the Lord. Of course transgression is an abomination according to this verse, and it is also a pollution. But the Bible says they polluted the house of the Lord.

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• So how in the world would you pollute the temple? That's the house of the Lord. How would you pollute the temple? Well, you could pollute the temple in a number of ways. Now listen carefully because there's going to be a real application of this. But you could pollute the temple, number one, by adding to it that which God has not ordained. You could also pollute the temple by changing it or altering it and putting something there that is contrary to God or contrary to God's ordination or contrary to God's arrangement. So how then did the priests and how did the people pollute the temple? Well, I want you to go back to 2 Kings chapter 16 and let's begin reading there with verse 10. 2 Kings chapter 16, let's begin with verse 10.

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• You're going to find what King Ahaz did, who was a wicked, wicked rascal. So watch this, 2 Kings chapter 16 verse 10: "And King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, according to the workmanship thereof." Now note if you would, the king is in Damascus, that's in Syria. So he sees this pagan altar and he likes it. So he sends to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar and the pattern of it. Watch verse 11: "And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Urijah the priest made it against King Ahaz came from Damascus." So he went ahead and made it very quickly. And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar and the king approached the altar and offered thereon.

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• Now this is something that God has not ordained that is in the temple. Now watch if you would. Something that God has not ordained that is in the temple. Notice if you would the Bible says very plainly there, "And he burnt his burnt offering and his meat offering, and poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of the peace offerings upon the altar. And he brought also the brazen altar, which was before the Lord, from the forefront of the house, from between the altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of the altar." So now what he's done, he's put his altar in a certain place and moved the altar of the Lord. Watch: "And King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening meat offering, and the king's burnt sacrifice, and his meat offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice: and the brazen altar shall be for me to inquire by."

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• "Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that King Ahaz commanded." So, what in the world has he done? He has taken a pagan altar and put it in the temple, and at the same time he has removed an altar which God had ordained and put in a proper place. And so he's basically defiled the temple. Now I want you to look if you would in 2 Kings chapter 23. So we're talking about pollution, we're talking about how to defile the temple. Okay, so look in 2 Kings chapter 23 and look if you would please at verse 5. 2 Kings 23 and verse 5. In fact, let's begin reading with verse 4. Look at verse 4: "And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order,

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• and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven. And he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel. And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven." Isn't that astounding? So they had in the temple now all of these instruments and all of these things worshipping Baal and the grove, which was an Asherah, which was a pagan goddess, a sex goddess. And now the king is saying, "You get all this trash out of the temple." Now wait a minute, look if you would please and skip down to verse 6. Here it is: "And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the

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• people." Here you go: "And he broke down the houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the Lord, by the temple, where the women wove hangings for the grove." Wow! So they had the sodomites and they had the immoral Asherah people worship all right there at the temple. And God says, "Look, you have polluted my house," and they added to it. Now, wait a minute. That's not all. Look, if you would, please, in the fact that Exodus chapter 20, if you would go back there just for a moment. And as you're going back to Exodus chapter 20, I'm going to go ahead and read 2 Kings 23 verses 10-12.

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• Listen to this: "And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire." So now you've had horses in the house of the Lord, or the entering into the house of the Lord, which they had given to the sun. And of course these chariots of the sun they burn with fire. Now before I read the next verse, I want you to understand how easy it is

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• to pollute the house of God. Okay, all you got to do is add something to it that God has not ordained or decreed. All you want to do is move something from the orderly arrangement that God has ordained. In other words, what you're trying to do is to make things the way you like it, the way that you prefer, that be easy on you. Now if you look back in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 25, listen to what God says to show you how particular this is. God says in Exodus 20 in verse 25: "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." God said you can't add anything to what I tell you. If you're gonna make me an altar of stone, you just get these stones where they are, you build me an altar. If you lift your tool up on it, you've polluted it. In other words, man is not to add to, man is not to change, man is not to alter anything that God has ordained.

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• Now, I want you to stop and think with me. I'm going to show you the Scriptures. But I want you to stop and think with me that any and everything that men do to the church—add to it, to change it, to alter it, to make it into something that it should not be—is polluting the temple of God. We pollute the church by adding unconverted people to it. We pollute the church—hang on—by giving worldly entertainment in the church. And we pollute the church by idolatry. Because anytime that we're doing anything contrary to God, it is idolatry. We pollute the church by self-serving programs and self-serving acts. Now, you say, "Brother Weaver, how in the world did you get from the temple to the church?" It's very easy.

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• So if you will turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Look if you would please beginning there with verse 16. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, notice if you would please verse 16. Here it is. Hang on. God says through the Apostle Paul: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

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• Now, in verses 16 and 17, he's talking about the church. How do I know that? Well, if you'll skip back to verse 8, he says this: "Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." Now look what he says in verse 9: "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building." Wow. So he tells us then that we are the building of God. Now go back to verse 16 again. He says, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Now let me tell you this. There are two Greek words for temple. The first one is the word hieron, and it just simply refers to the building, to the structure.

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• I could say, "There stands a hieron." But the second Greek word is the word naos. The word naos refers to the most holy place. You remember in the temple, the earthly temple, there is the court of the people. There is the holy place. And there was the Most Holy Place. Well, the word naos refers to the Most Holy Place. It is where our Lord manifests Himself, where His presence is. You say, "Now wait a minute. What do you mean where our Lord's presence is?" Do you not remember in Matthew 18 what He said?

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• "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Yeah. So the church then, basically, is the temple of God.

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• Now, before I show you another passage, hold 1 Corinthians, but turn right over to the book of Ephesians. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Look in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning there verse 20. I'm just trying to show you that the church is the temple of God. That's not all, but hang on. Ephesians 2 verse 20. Let's read verse 19: "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." Look now: "In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." So he's saying once again that we believers are the church and we are the temple of God. Now, I want you to go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, because 1 Corinthians chapter 3 talks about the church, it talks about the people of God being God's building, God's husbandry. But when you get to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verses 19 and 20,

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• now we're talking about individual Christians. He says, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." Now look at this. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are his." Do you realize that we sin when we treat our bodies as our own? If you're a Christian, your body is not yours, your spirit is not yours. Jesus Christ bought you. And by the way, when he says in verse 19 that you are the temple of God, it is the word naos. In other words, we individuals are the temple of God, and when we come together as a church, we are also the temple of God. Now there are many ways to pollute the temple, as I pointed out earlier. You can pollute the temple of your body.

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• You can also pollute the temple of the church. And I suppose that one thing that hinders the advancement of God's kingdom and the advancement of the church is the pollution that's in the assembly. When you think about all the fussing and fighting, all the ill will, all the heartache that goes on, all the unforgiving spirits—that's not just true in a local body. It's true in our own bodies as well. So it does not matter when we talk about polluting the temple whether or not we're talking about food or fornication or idolatry. In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, the way that he's talking about polluting your body is through fornication. Now I want to show you from the Scripture this truth about pollution. So I want you to turn in your Bibles if you would please to the book of Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel, and we're going to begin in chapter 4, and then we're going to look at a number of passages. So I want you to see this because pollution is real in our day and time as well as in the Old Testament. So in the book of Ezekiel chapter 4, and look if you would please at verse 14, and I'll explain it. "Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not

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• been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth." So God has told Ezekiel to do something, and he's to be a sign to the children of Israel. And God says, "Here's what you're going to have to do. You're going to lay on your side a certain length of time, you're going to lay on the other side a certain length of time, you're going to pitch a siege against Jerusalem, you're going to picture everything that I'm going to do to Jerusalem." And he said, "You're going to eat your food little by little, and you're going to cook it with the dung of man." And that's when Ezekiel says, "Lord, I—my soul has not been polluted.

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• I have not done anything unclean. I've not done anything impure like that." God says in the passage, if you read it, "Okay, I'll give you cow's dung. You may use cow's dung to cook your food." And by the way, if you think that's strange, it's not, because that's how the American Indians usually cook with the dung of buffalo, and a lot of the folks in China and Mongolia do the same thing.

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• I'm just simply saying, Ezekiel said, "I just don't want to be polluted." Now, look in chapter 14 and verse 11, Ezekiel 14 and verse 11. So we're talking about pollution now. So look at this: "That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God." So here's what I want you to note. When we sin, when we transgress, we become polluted. He said that Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions. So sin pollutes, period. Turn right over to the book of Ezekiel chapter 20, and notice if you would please, verse 26. Ezekiel 20 in verse 26, God says concerning the people that sinned against him, he said, "And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord." Now He's talking about judging these people, and so they were polluting God. They wouldn't listen to Him.

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• And so now God in turn, in judgment, He pollutes them as well. Now if you look in Ezekiel chapter 20 in verse 30, he says this again: "For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel?" Wow. Verse 30: "Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?"

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• And by the way, I'm sure you don't remember it, but a number of years ago, I preached two messages on adultery and whoredom. And the interesting thing is, although the Bible does deal with physical adultery, the way you and I would think of it, and physical whoredom, probably about 98 or 99% of the time, when those words are used, especially in the Old Testament, it refers to idolatry. So when he talks about them going a whoring or committing adultery, they were leaving him and going after false gods and false idols. Now look in your Bibles if you would please to chapter 23 and verse 17, because you'll see this again, just like I explained. Ezekiel 23 verse 17: "And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them." So again, this is idolatry because Israel went after the gods of the Assyrians and the gods of the Babylonians, etc. Now, so one more, if you will look in Ezekiel chapter 36.

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• Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 18. Ezekiel 36 verse 18, God says: "Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it." Now let me mention something to you, and I'm going to show you this from the Bible. I hope you're already putting things together. You can pollute yourself. You can pollute the name of God. You can pollute the temple of God, which is your body and the church. But you can also pollute the land. Your society—let me say it even more—you can also pollute your own nation. You say, "How in the world does that happen?" Well, look back in your Bibles if you would to the book of Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers chapter 35, and let's begin reading there with verse 30. Numbers 35 verse 30, and we'll read through verse 34. Watch. Numbers chapter 35 verse 30, God says: "Whoso killeth any person,

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• the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die. Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel." So notice if you would, you can pollute the entire land by not executing those who merit the death penalty. Wow. I have no idea how many people are on death row in

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• this country. Some of them been there for 20 or 30 years. Some of them will die there, never ever be executed. And God says, when someone murders, the blood that was shed pollutes the land. And the only way the land can be cleansed is by the blood of him that shed it. So the Bible actually demands what you and I would call capital punishment. And some of you probably heard in the news about the man who was executed in South Carolina, I think it was on Friday, by firing squad. First time it had happened in 15 years in South Carolina. And I was watching a little bit of the news on the internet, and oh, it was so awful. I couldn't even watch it. And someone was saying that, well, the Old Testament demanded the death penalty, but in the New Testament there was forgiveness. No, no, no, no, no. God does not change. God still demands the death penalty for the murderer. And so he said, it pollutes the land.

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• Now, here's the interesting thing. I told you at the beginning, if you look in verse 33, he says, "So shall ye not pollute the land"—that is the Hebrew word kalal. And then he said, "For blood it defileth the land"—that is the Hebrew word kalal. So here pollute and defile are from the same Hebrew word. However, when you get to verse 34, when he says, "Defile not therefore the land," that is a totally different word, that is the word tamei, which I mentioned earlier for pollution. The word defile and pollute are basically the same.

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• Now, so polluting the name of God, polluting the temple of God, polluting the land that God has given us are all forms of cursing God. You can curse God by profanation, you can curse God by pollution. You can also curse God by taking his name in vain. When you do these things, you are outside of the temple. You've crossed the threshold. You've gone out. You're totally saying, "God doesn't matter. His word doesn't matter." Not at all.

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• Now, I want you to take with me my last thought for this day, okay? And that is I want you to consider the meaning of taking God's name in vain. I began with Exodus chapter 20 and verse 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." So what in the world is taking his name in vain? For most professing Christians, taking God's name in vain is cussing.

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• Or if you're college educated, you might call it cursing. But cussing and cursing are basically the same. That is the limit of their thinking. They think, "Well, just because I have not taken God's name and attached it to a slang word, then I have not taken his name in vain." Dear friend, I've got news for you. You are not thinking biblically and scripturally if you think that. You'll notice, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." That is a negative. Every negative has a positive. Every positive has a negative. When God says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," the positive is, "Thou shalt take the name of the Lord thy God in righteousness and in truth." Now, the negative "thou shalt not" bears

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• all false swearing, all false oaths, including the names of false gods. Someone says, "Well, I'll swear by Zeus." That's forbidden in the third commandment. He's a false god. You can't swear by anything that's false. Not even a false power. So the negative then forbids all false swearing, all false oaths. And hang on to this one. Our swearing should be done in His name. You say, "Wait a minute. The Scripture says, 'Swear not at all.'" Well, that is true. You are not to swear at all in your own being, but you are to swear by His name. So if you look in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus chapter 19—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus—look in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 12. Hang in here with me. Leviticus 19 verse 12: "And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord." Now watch: "Ye shall not swear by my name falsely," which means you shall swear by His name truthfully. If you swear by His name falsely, which I'm going to explain momentarily, if you swear by His name falsely, you are profaning the name of thy God.

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• He says, "I am the Lord." You're not to swear by my name falsely. Look in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy. Turn right on over: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Look in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 13. Deuteronomy 6 verse 13: "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name." Wow. Thou shalt swear by his name. No false swearing, but swearing in truth, in holiness, in righteousness. If you look in Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 20, Deuteronomy 10 in verse 20, again he says, "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name." Now let me tell you that God swears by his own name. I will show you that. I want you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah chapter 45, and I want you to look at verses 22 and 23. There's an interesting story attached to Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 22. I read it years and years ago. So look in Isaiah 45 in verse 22 before we go to verse 23. In verse 22,

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• he says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." I've always remembered this verse because of the story that I read. It was this verse under which Charles Haddon Spurgeon was converted. And as I read, he was walking to church. He had to walk because there was a humongous snowstorm. And even the pastor could not get to the church because of the snowstorm. And so when Spurgeon got there, there was only a handful of people there. And an old deacon stood up who was not a preacher, was not prepared to preach. And so he opened a Bible to this Isaiah 45 verse 22, and he said something like this: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Look unto me. Any fool can look. Just lift up your eyes and look. Any imbecile can look. Just lift up your eyes and look." Spurgeon said he carried on like that for about five or ten minutes, and he said, "And finally I looked, and the Lord saved me." And can you imagine, here he was a young boy, and God saved him, and he turned out to be one of the greatest preachers

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• that ever lived. But it was based on this verse. But look what he says now. Isaiah 45 verse 22: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Look what God says: "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." They will swear that he is indeed the one true and the living God, and beside him there is none else, and that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. They will swear to him. Now if you look in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews chapter 6—Hebrews, James—look in Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 13. Just showing you that God swears, and he swears by himself because he is the epitome of holiness, righteousness, and truth. So look at it in Hebrews chapter 6 in verse 13: "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." So Abraham received the oath of God because God swore by himself. So let me put it to you like this: all false swearing and all untruthful swearing is forbidden. It's also forbidden to swear by any false god or any false power. And just stop and think about this, because

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• probably most of you have said it. I've heard people say it, and I may have said it, I don't remember. You'll say something like this: "Well, I will tell you what I will do." And what are you doing? You're swearing by yourself. In one sense of the word, you're not using the word "swear," but in essence you're saying, "I'll fix you. I'll do what I'm going to do." Yeah, you're swearing. You're telling somebody what you're going to do. And as James says, "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that."

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• It's just that simple. Now, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." What does that mean? Here's the word "take." It's a very important word. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." The Hebrew word is the word nasa, and it means to lift up, and to bear up, to carry, to lift up and to exalt. Now I told you, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain"—that is a negative. We're not to take the name of the Lord in vain. I'm gonna explain vanity just a minute. But the positive is this: I shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. How do you not take the name of the Lord in vain? By grounding every thought and action and attitude and disposition upon God and his word. We take his name in vain when we deny his reality. God is the one that determines what reality really is. And stop and think. Stop and think about all the stupidity that has gone on in this country for the last seven or eight years.

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• Someone saying, "Well, I was born a man, but I think I'm a woman." That is the height of blasphemy. Because what you're doing is saying this: "I don't live in reality. I live in my own fantasy world. I determine what reality is." Stop and think. They're taking the name of God in vain. They're saying that I'm not the way God made me. I'm not what God made me. It's just that simple. Now, we take his name in vain when we deny his reality, when we deny his law word, when we live as if he does not exist or that he has not spoken, or when we live as if he has no authority to tell us what to do. God has every right to tell us what to do because God is our creator. We're the creature. He is the master and we're the servant. And if we're saved, he's the father and we're the son. So you're taking his name in vain when you do not live in His reality according to His law and according to His word.

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• Now, what does the word "vain" mean? Listen to this. The Hebrew word is shav, which means emptiness, vanity, falsehood, lying, worthlessness of conduct. Oh, here we go. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain"—in worthless conduct, in worthless living, in vain living, in empty living. Here you are as a Christian, and you're professing to be his child, and then you're living as if he doesn't exist. You remember a few weeks back I preached from Jeremiah chapter 2, where God says, "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number."

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• So when we forget God, when we forget to study, when we forget to read His Word, when we forget to pray, when we forget to obey, we're taking His name in vain. It's very easy for a Christian to take the name of the Lord in vain. It means that you're living an empty profession, a worthless profession. You're living in disregard of him.

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• Let me give you a good illustration. I want you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 17. This is a tremendous passage. I wish I had time to read all of it. You need to read this entire chapter when you get home. But in 2 Kings chapter 17, the children of Israel, of course, forsook God and His law and started following men and their power and their statutes. So 2 Kings 17 verse 8, in fact let's read verse 7: "For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made." In other words, they ceased obeying God and started obeying man. Now watch verse 9.

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• "And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree."

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• Now, you can read this and you can see how wicked they really were. So what God did was this: He sent the king of Assyria, and the king of Assyria defeated them, and what he did was this: He took a lot of the Israelites and put them over in Assyria. Then he took a lot of these other heathen people and he populated Samaria with them. So what is happening now is this: When you read this chapter, you're going to find that the people had their own false gods. And the Lord sent lions and slew some of them. And so they sent to the king of Assyria and they said, "The lions are slaying us because we know not the manner of the God of the land." Now I want you to remember the manner of the God of the land. Don't you remember

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• Jeroboam made the two golden calves. This is why God destroyed them. That was the initial—they made the two golden calves. And so the priests that were there were priests of the calves. They were not priests of God. And so what happens, the king of Assyria then sends one of these pagan priests, supposedly God's priest, back to teach them the manner of the God of the land. In other words, they were individuals who thought they were far more than one God—polytheists. Notice if you would.

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• So I want you to look at this. This is so astounding to me. So if you would, let's skip down to verse 24. "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord."

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• Note that they had no respect for God. "Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord."

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• Now I want you to watch this. "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim." Now watch verse 32. "So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places." Here it is: "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods."

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• "After the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence." How in the world can you fear God and serve your own gods? Because you have an empty profession. You don't really know him. You don't really fear him, because if you fear him you obey him. You remember I preached two messages, twin truths: fear and obedience. Yes. So the Bible said, "So they feared the Lord, and served their own gods." Well, what did God say? Well, look in verse 34: "Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel." God said they don't fear me because they don't obey me. So they said they feared the Lord, but then they turn around and serve their own gods. Let me tell you something: you may take God's name in vain and never curse. You may take God's name in vain and never utter his

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• name with a slang word. All you have to do is live your life as if God is not God, or God has not spoken, or God has no authority in your life. You can take his name in vain and never use his name as a byword or use his name flippantly. No, no, no. And the way you do it is just simply by ignoring God. And when you take His name in vain, you're cursing Him. When you pollute His temple, you're cursing Him. When you profane His name, you're cursing Him. And all you have to do to curse God is fail to acknowledge that He is the absolute sovereign of heaven and earth, and that He has the absolute right to tell you how to live.

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• Now let me try to tie it together with some applications. The first one is this: listen carefully. A profane life, a polluted life, and a life that takes God's name and carries God's name in a worthless, empty, and useless manner are all forms of cursing God. You can curse God by profaning his name. You can curse God by polluting the temple. You can curse God by taking his name in vain. So the third commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain"—the third commandment deals with God's name, God's office, and God's position. He is the sovereign, he is the king, he is the lawgiver, he is the ruler of all. So anytime that you live in such a way that denies the reality of God, you're taking his name in vain. You're carrying his name in vain. Wow. That brings me to this second one. I've hit upon it earlier. I'm gonna hit upon it again. God defines reality. His definition of reality is reality, not ours. We want to live in our own fantasy world.

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• It doesn't exist. Our world does not. Only his world exists. When you ground your thinking, when you ground your actions and your conduct in anything other than the Word of God, you're denying God's reality. You're denying Him, and you're taking His name in vain. So obviously, clearly, there are a lot of Christians that can and do profane the name of God, that do pollute the temple of God, and that do carry His name in vain. All are forms of cursing God.

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• "Thou shalt not curse the ruler of thy people." So if it's wrong to curse our own physical rulers, how much worse is it to curse the sovereign God of heaven and earth? We do not wish to profane his name, pollute his name, or carry his name in vain. Our lives are to demonstrate his reality. All right, are there any questions or comments before we pray? I hope you see the profanation, pollution, and carrying God's name in vain all go together. Okay. Frank? Anybody on that end? No, we're just considering. Didn't you teach also on the idea of taking the Lord's name in vain by like lightly esteeming God? By doing what? Taking his name in vain by doing what? By deceiving him? By lightly esteeming. No, lightly esteeming. Not giving it—I still didn't hear that word. Esteeming. Yes. Yes. Well, that would be it anytime. Yes, that would be true because the third commandment deals with his person, his office, and his position. So anytime we do not esteem him as the way he is in Scripture,

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• we are indeed profaning his name and polluting his name and taking his name in vain. That is for sure. He is to be esteemed highly because he is God. That is for sure. Alright, well, let's have prayer and we'll be dismissed, and Lord willing we'll be back here next Sunday. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we ask for your grace and your mercy. We ask for your truth, and ask, Lord, that you would help us not to profane your name, not to pollute your name, and certainly, Lord, not to carry it emptily and worthlessly. And Lord, we just ask that our lives will be brought into greater conformity to your word, and that you'd be honored and glorified. And in the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.

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• you you

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T01:26:20Z