Forms of Blasphemy

Exodus chapter 20 verse 7, You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. You may be seated. I think I saw at least one person mouthing it along with me. I'm very proud of that. I hope that some of you have continued to try to memorize at least the first 17 verses of this chapter.

We are, I think, like week 12 in here. You probably could have at least 12 of them memorized by now without trying hard if you just read it every day. So you'll notice that the bulletin says we're going to have communion at the beginning, which I actually sort of was enjoying. But I wanted to move it to the end today as a last minute decision, actually. and we may move it for a little while because my concern, now that I'm going to say this, maybe it won't happen, but my concern is that the sermon that I'm preparing for you today is going to wreck you.

And I wanted to be able to do communion after the sermon so those of you who maybe are cut by God's word sharply will have the healing balm of the means of grace of his communion afterwards to help you. I think I would have felt bad if I had a sermon that was utterly accusatory of each of our hearts in a sense and then nothing afterwards for you. And so that's why we moved communion.

And so if you're sitting here during the sermon and you're thinking, wow, this is tough, no one can do this, just know that afterwards we'll celebrate the fact that Christ has already done it for us and let that be your hope. Last week I explained to you what I thought biblically was at least a good summary of the seriousness of the sin of blasphemy. Having established that it's utterly serious, this week what I'd like to do is I'd like to try to tell you what it is.

So if last week was the seriousness of blasphemy, this week would be like the definition of it. I think I titled my sermon already, which rarely happens beforehand. I called it Forms of Blasphemy. And so, the blower keeps blowing my page. And so, what I want to ask you to do though, before we begin, is I want you to prepare yourself to be humble. about what I'm about to tell you.

Because some of the things that I'm going to say are going to, I mean, just put it bluntly, it's going to literally accuse you of blasphemy in areas that maybe you in your life have never even thought of it that way. You may know you're falling short even in some areas, but you may have never thought of this as a literal violation of the third commandment. So I just want us all to be open to this.

And I want you to prepare yourself for that. And if anybody, don't take anything personally. I didn't have anyone in mind in any of the things I have here, any of the examples. So if anybody says, wow, he's talking straight to me, that's the Holy Spirit accusing you in your heart. Turn to Genesis 4.26. We're going to jump around a few verses at the beginning. and then unfortunately I don't want to say unfortunately but I don't really have a point and I don't even have one or two points today this is kind of a cacophony of different things we're going to talk about related to blasphemy and so it's not going to be one where you walk out and remember the one oh the one good thing to remember I don't really have one of those.

So hopefully at least parts of it will affect you. If you take notes, you can write down some of the verses we'll look at. And then you can always go listen to the sermon later. We can talk about it more as well. The name of God is holy and powerful, though, and his name is his essence. So what I want you to get in your mind when he says, Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who uses his name in vain.

He's saying my name is holy and it's perfect and in a sense it's useful. And if you use it in vain, that's another word for uselessness. So if you use it in a useless manner or an irreverent manner, you're blaspheming God. And God's name though, and this is I think the first thing. So if there's one point I guess, the one point is God's name isn't just a string of letters. that you put together and then make a sound with your mouth, okay?

So when I say the name Jeremy, it's not just a six-letter word that I can say and I know how to pronounce it. When I say the name Jeremy, in this room, you guys actually have a person in your mind that you go right to, right? There's, you know, if I said Michael, you might think of two people, right? And there's just two of us. Then there's Ezra and Michael.

But so when we say someone's name, it's not just the string of letters. It's not just a word. It has a meaning behind it. And it has thoughts that it conjures when you say someone's name. It's the same with God's name. And so what I want you to understand is that God's name is more than just God or Yahweh or Jesus. the word christ maybe you don't know this the word christ is actually just a title i mean it's a good title but the word christ just means anointed one it's just a greek form of of the word messiah messiah from the hebrew which is who they were always looking forward to so when you say Jesus Christ that not his last name You actually saying the anointed Jesus is what you saying when you say that But we say Jesus Christ as well, and we mean that as his name.

But in Genesis 4.26, just a few verses real quick, just about the name of God. If you wanted to just go through the Bible, Jason just read Revelation 14. the name of God was written on their foreheads, right? Of his people. It was written on them twice, I think. And you can turn that down or back up. It gets too cold for me.

I don't know if everybody's comfortable. I think it's getting kind of cold. So the name of God is important. Genesis 4.26, the end of the chapter where Cain kills Abel, he says, to Seth also was born, a son was born, and he called his name Enosh, at that time people began to call upon the name of Yahweh. So this, as far as I know, is the first instance when people started calling upon the name of God, the name of Yahweh.

And what I'll tell you is when you hear the Bible say, call upon the name of God or call upon the name of Yahweh or on the name of the Lord, it's just another way of saying people are getting saved. okay so to call upon the name of the Lord isn't just shouting the name Jesus okay that's that's not what it means this is one of the problems with evangelism in the 20th well probably the 19th century as well as is we've got we've broken down the call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved we've broken that down into just getting people to repeat a few words that they don't mean that they have no objective thoughts behind. Right? So turn to Psalm 116.

You don't have to turn to all these if you don't feel like turning now. Just a few verses about the name of God. Just to give you an idea that this is prevalent. And there's way more verses that I'm going to go to. Psalm 116, 17. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of Yahweh.

That's the verse that Jonah remembers when he's in the belly of the fish, right? You can look it up if you want. I think it's chapter 2, maybe about verse 8. Jonah gets saved. He's either saved already and he's professing it or he gets saved. Zechariah 3.9.

I'm not going to explain all these verses. They're just some examples for you. I just want you to see God's name. Zechariah is a little one. Page 1302 in my Bible. I don't know if that helps anyone.

Zechariah 3.9. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua. Oh no, I'm sorry. Zephaniah 3.9 Very close. Zephaniah 3.9 I'm in Zechariah verse 2. Zephaniah 3.9 Just a few pages to your left in your Bible.

For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech. So this is God saying He's going to save somebody. Okay? That all of them may call upon the name of Yahweh and serve Him with one accord. and call upon the name of the Lord. So this is an important thing, calling upon the name of the Lord. Now, Zechariah 13, 9, so similar number there, similar spelling of the prophet's name as well.

And I will put this third into the fire and refine them as one refined silver and test them as gold is tested. So just a quick side note, we're a Reformed church, this isn't about purgatory, okay? he says, they will call upon my name and I will answer them. I will say, these are my people. And they will say, the Lord or Yahweh is my God. When God speaks about people calling upon his name, I just want you to get out of your mind the idea of just people shouting his name.

Like it's not just calling his name. There's a meaning behind it that's going on in a person's heart. where what they're doing is they're calling upon the person of Jesus Christ. His name is equal with his essence in this sense. Look at the New Testament in Acts 4.12. Very important to understand God's name. He has a commandment literally all about it.

And I dare say the third and fourth commandments are probably the most ignored ones. Obviously we put them all aside when we want, but it seems like there's people that try to keep the last five at least pretty well, or at least they try to keep six through nine. But Acts 4, I don't want to get into all that. And there is salvation in no one else. He's talking about Jesus Christ. for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

So what's important to understand here in Romans 10, 13 is an Old Testament quote. Although everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. What's important to understand here is that the name of God means more than the literal letters you're looking at. okay so the letters J-E-S-U-S those in and of themselves those letters don't have a lot of meaning in fact many of you have probably met somebody who actually has a name spelled that exact way and saying his name had nothing to do with God when you said it If you ever met someone named Joshua I think that was what supposedly is what Jesus was called right That was what he would have been called, Joshua.

And so there's words and there's letters, but also what's important to understand is that the name is important. So you can't expect people who've never heard the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. It's not as simple as, oh, they're just calling on God, so therefore they can be saved. They do have to hear this name of Jesus Christ, which is why we have missions.

If people could prove to me that you didn't have to hear of Jesus to be saved, or that Muslims are legitimately having dreams about an actual Jesus and getting saved by them, then we would never need to send missionaries into any kind of dangerous part of the world whatsoever. but we have to because Jesus' name is vital to salvation. In Matthew 6, 9, does any of you kids remember what's Matthew 6, 9? Go ahead.

Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. When Jesus taught us to pray, the first thing we do is acknowledge God as our Father. I don't want to exegete the whole prayer. That's my risk when I start doing that. But then he says, hallowed be your name. Let your name be holy.

Let your name be respected. The very first thing we do when we pray is to remind ourselves that God's name is to be holy. Matthew 28, 19 and 20. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations and then do what? baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It's all about the name of God.

It's not a magic formula. I referenced this slightly last week. You can pray for as long as you want, and if at the very end of the prayer you mindlessly say, in Jesus' name I pray, you've just committed blasphemy. in Jesus's name I pray is not your is not a stamp of approval on the end of a prayer that you just tack on because it's just words God gave you it's got to have meaning I dare say most of us when we say in Jesus's name we pray we're actually committing a form of witchcraft where we think we're doing something by just the mere words we say meaninglessly when we say in Jesus's name we pray, what we're supposed to be thinking in our hearts is we are in fact praying only through the Son of God.

We are acknowledging to God that it is only the name of Jesus Christ by which we can be saved and have access to Him, to the Holy of Holies. Look at John 17.6. This is a verse. Jesus is speaking. He's praying to God and they're recording the prayer for us. He says, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

Jesus came to reveal God to us. Jesus revealing God to us is equated with manifesting God's name to us. in Philippians 2 10 after describing Jesus's humiliation his coming into the world and being obedient to the point of death even death on a cross Paul says therefore God has exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name and he says so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess in heaven and on earth and under the earth that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, having established that blasphemy is serious, that God's name is holy and powerful, I want to also let you see how wonderful it is.

Look at Proverbs 18, verse 10. This is a good memory verse. I haven't memorized this one, but I'm looking at it thinking it would be a good one to have in my mind. Proverbs 18.10 The name of Yahweh is a strong tower. The righteous man runs into it and is safe. This is a picture of hiding in Christ.

David says to God, he says, you are my hiding place. A strong tower is a place you can go and be protected from enemies. The name of God offers you that protection. It's not a promise that you won't suffer. If you don't want to suffer, don't be a Christian. But it is a strong tower whereby the fiery darts of Satan will not be able to get at you and no one will be able to bring an accusation against you before God.

And then Exodus 15.3 kind of an interesting verse because as you know I've been saying Yahweh and we've been saying that since we began this church when we read the Old Testament and when we read the Old Testament we always say Yahweh and there's a whole story behind that so there's this blasphemy commandment don't take the Lord's name in vain or it says Yahweh's name in vain in the original and the Jews became very superstitious about the use of God's name to the point where they figure, well, if we just never say it, then we won't be blaspheming God. So they as usual with the Jews and then the people that were the Pharisees they took everything utterly literally And rather than recognizing the heart attitude behind what blasphemy in the law was supposed to mean they decided well we just won say it and we never be in violation of it This would have been the attitude of the very people that murdered Jesus Christ. You realize that, okay?

That they weren't blasphemers because they didn't say Yahweh. They said Adonai instead. So they wrote it that way. there's a long story how this all works but I encourage you to understand it because I think when you read the Old Testament and you read Exodus 15 3 it doesn't make sense if it says the Lord is a man of war and then the Lord is his name when the Lord is clearly a title his name is not the Lord it doesn't say in the Hebrew the word Lord there it says Yahweh is a man of war Yahweh is his name is what it says and that's why I say Yahweh and I say Yah Yahweh sometimes and you can look at all this stuff we have the original manuscripts and you can get it free on computers and you can know when it says Yah and when it says Yahweh and you can memorize the scriptures the way it should be in my opinion you can read it right but these Jews they had a superstition they thought they couldn't say it So that's why we have the Lord in all these translations.

One of the reasons why the Legacy Standard Bible that's coming out right now is a really great translation because it translates it correctly. But it's not about the string of letters that's used. It's not about whether you pronounce it right or wrong. I mean, if you meet a guy and says his name is Jesus, you're not blaspheming God because you say his name. it's not about the literal use of a string of letters.

The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. That's a little Christian cliche if you haven't heard that one. The question is this. In your heart, with every single word you say and every single thing you do, is God consecrated and is He holy? Are you being reverent when you use God's name and thoughtful about it. Again, I think you can sit here in this building with us and you can sing the songs we sing and you can be blaspheming the entire time.

And I've done it. Because I think there's different levels of blasphemy and one of them, the unintentional one, is when you're singing the song and you find your mind wandering, you're thinking about something else. God's name is to be used reverently. So let's look at some forms of blasphemy. Turn to Malachi 1. So now I'm going to get into, I'll say the details for you.

So if you want a list of bad words, you shouldn't say, I'm not going to give you the list. I think that most of us have an idea what are some misuses of God's name. I think that I'm going to enlighten you today as to the use of some other phrases that probably we should make sure we're not using. And I'm going to also open this up to the fact that there's way more that's blasphemy than what most of us believe.

Malachi 1.6 this whole chapter, this whole book is about how the priests in the time of Israel were just rotten and these guys were not offering sacrifices to God properly they weren't good priests as they were supposed to be and so here we are we're priests of a new covenant there's a priesthood of all believers and we have the option to completely follow in the footsteps of these guys that showed us how to do it wrong or we can go ahead and try to learn from them, so listen Malachi 1.6, skip the first part a son honors his father and a servant his master if then I am a father where is my honor? so God is saying where is my honor? he says if I am a master where is my fear? now listen he says Yahweh of hosts to you oh priests and he says who despise my name interesting if you look at a word search in the New Testament Greek on blasphemo or blasphemo sometimes it's translated blasphemy or blasphemer or blaspheming and sometimes it's just translated reviling or hatred when you blaspheme god's name it's you're just reviling his name you're using it irreverently and these guys say how have we despised your name okay so here you go how have we despised your name so here's where if you're one of the people trying to figure out How can we blaspheme God? The answer to that question helps you know, how can I avoid blaspheming God? And here's the answer.

The answer could be, yeah, just don't say it ever and you'll be fine. That's one answer, right? Or every time you say it, when you're all finished, say, praise the Lord in a different tone if you want, right? This is what he says. You blasphemed and despised my name by offering polluted food upon my altar, by bringing sacrifices that weren't worthy sacrifices.

But you say, how have we polluted you? By saying that Yahweh's table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? this isn't the point of the sermon but you should think about what you do for others in the church you should think about your giving you should think about your time that you sacrifice for others when you read this sentence here and when you offer those that are lame or sick is that not evil? he says present that to your governor will he accept you or show you favor? you ask yourself do you give as much of your time, effort like prayer life Love for the brethren to your own church that you would for your neighbor who needed help at a party?

You know? Would you pay more respect to the governor of your city than you do to your, or the governor of your state, I guess, in that case, in our case, than you do to the Lord? But they despised his name, and at no point in Malachi 1.6 is there any reference to, you misused it when you were speaking. they certainly probably obeyed that one outwardly I think that explains their shock these priests that say to God how have we despised your name spent their days not technically blaspheming God in the way that they had decided the third commandment should be applied and that's where Jesus came in in Matthew 5 of course and he explained God's law in much deeper terms than just the outward manifestations that we sometimes see.

So here's some forms of blasphemy. Using God's attributes in an unholy way as well. So let me give you two examples that drive me absolutely bonkers when I hear anyone say them, but especially Christians. So this is your chance. humble yourself, not speaking to anyone in particular, but it's hard for people to hear. God is good. The goodness of God is one of his attributes.

So when you say, oh my goodness, instead of, oh my God, and you think that you have just not blasphemed because you substituted a different word for God, you've just blasphemed because you've taken an attribute of God and you've made it the object of your exclamation. And if your argument is, well, I'm not talking about God's goodness, then the response is, well, you don't have any goodness of your own. So if you say, oh, my goodness, the only goodness you possibly have is the goodness of Jesus Christ.

Now I'll recognize, and I'm not alone in this, I'll recognize that some people are actually trying to do better. So they've created substitute words so they can do better. But I want us to think about the things we say a little more than we think about them. Another example I'll give you. If you ascribe the adjective holy before anything, that's not God, or that isn't declared holy by God, you've just blasphemed another attribute of God.

So let me give you an example. By giving examples, I'm comfortable I'm not actually blaspheming. So it's not just about the words coming out of my mouth. Do you see that? So if I say right now, I think saying holy mackerel is a problem, I need you to understand why I think it's okay to say that now in a teaching context. It's not those words coming out that's the problem.

It's when we say things like holy moly or holy cow, or sometimes we use holy and then we put even dirtier words under there that we shouldn't say at all. And I'll tell you what, blasphemy is a thousand times worse than profanity. But when you combine the two, it's like, what are you trying to do now? That's what evildoers do. You go on Twitter or some of these websites, I don't even know what they all are anymore, and you start reading what some of these people write.

It's like a non-stop conflation of God's name and known profanity in little sentences. And they have little acronyms for it now. So you can't even help but think it in your mind. I hate it. Okay. Any substitute for God or biblical concepts, I'll even say, is a problem.

Okay? so when we say things like gosh or heck or dang these things are things that we usually are just replacing forms of blasphemy with. Now I don't know your heart but God does and he will not hold him guiltless who uses his name in vain. So you might say this stuff when you're not around me or church you might not get caught by your parents, your friends might say worse so you feel pretty good about it, but do you really want God to see you as somebody with a dirty mouth?

So check your heart. The problem comes down to your heart. Why are you saying things at all sometimes? Think through why you're saying what you're saying. Evaluate the word. Why am I using the word I'm using?

Am I just trying to say a word that sounds like a different word, but I don't know what else to say, so I say something different, and I think, okay, I'm probably okay now. I will say this, I think we can sometimes be accidentally blasphemous, where we didn't even know the origin of a phrase, so we repeat a phrase that to us just means, wow, I was shocked, and we didn't realize that that actually was a form of a replacement phrase at one point. That happened Have you ever said goodbye to someone So goodbye comes from an old English phrase God be with you And then you get the good from God, and then the be with ye, it would be with ye, and then you get B-Y-E, that's why we spell by B-Y-E, and you get God be with you.

Well, it got shortened to goodbye. It just meant God be with you. Well, how many times have you said goodbye to someone, and in your mind, you weren't thinking about God? Well, if you didn't know, that was the origin of the phrase. I'm going to tell you, you know, you're probably okay. But I want us to think about what we say.

In Matthew 12, 36, Jesus says one of the most chilling things to anyone that meditates on this verse. In Matthew 12, 36, Jesus says, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. So, Lord willing, we're all people, at least by the end of the third commandment discussion in church, Lord willing, we're all people that have no desire to blaspheme.

We're all people that actually hope to not use God's name in vain. we're all thinking of phrases and things that we say that well okay I guess that one probably is blasphemy I should probably stop I really want to stop and yet it's your careless words that will be judged as well now granted if Jesus died on your behalf he was judged for them but how many more do you want to add in this lifetime then your careless words will be judged so for example when you're singing hymns when you're doing a responsive reading at church these are times that christians probably aren't that are that we're not being careful we're not being deliberate we're not considering all that's going on in our heart and mind sometimes even repeating phrases somebody else said to quote them we need to we need to think twice about even repeating some of these things okay and speaking up about it. In the sinners in the hands of an angry God, Jonathan Edwards, when he was preaching to the people, in one of the phrases he said, there's no other reason to be given why you have not gone into hell. He's talking about God's mercy and patience towards sinners.

He says there's no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God provoking his pure eyes by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Edwards understood that even Christians could sit in a room and provoke God even though outwardly nobody might know. You may recall that when Jesus said someone would betray him, none of the apostles pointed at Judas and said, well, it's probably that guy.

He's got all the signs, right? we don't know when there's a Judas sometimes among us okay a second way or wait a third way to blaspheme so the first way was by using God's attributes improperly we already understand his name you don't say his name and things like that improperly saying his name without being reverent the third way to blaspheme is to attribute God's work to other entities okay this is where the phrase blasphemy of the Holy Spirit I think most likely comes in so if you remember in Matthew I think 12 Jesus says all manner of blasphemies will be forgiven men but you can blaspheme against Jesus and you'll be forgiven but if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit you won't be forgiven and in the context of that passage Jesus appears to be saying that if you attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan, you've pretty much denied Christ. You are unregenerate. So you can study that one more.

I didn't want to get into what that one meant. But attributing God's work to other entities. So have you ever used the phrase mother nature or nature? Sometimes we may say well, this is natural, but Mother Nature is in fact a false goddess that our world worships. And if you don't think they do, you'll see an April on Earth Day, we can talk about it. Or try throwing an empty water bottle on the ground sometime around some of these hippie folks and see how they react.

All right, they worship their Mother Nature and they attribute to her all of the works of creation. and so when we claim mother nature has done something when we use the word luck some of this stuff is just part of our vernacular and I'm trying to tell you to change your vernacular the fact that it's part of you is the problem, that's not the excuse there's no such thing as luck there's a sovereign God who orders all things after the counsel of his own perfect will. There's no such thing as chance. Now I get it, sometimes we use these phrases and we know what they mean sometimes in context.

But ultimately if every lot is cast into the lap and its decision is from the Lord even when we say there a chance of rolling the dice one way or another it really God But I get it too, like if I said, hey, I'm going to ride my bike 50 miles and you said good luck with that, I would be absolutely certain that you weren't trying to blaspheme God. You were simply pointing out, I don't think you're going to ride 50 miles. Okay, so words have different meanings.

And they have different meanings in context at times. So we have to be able to discern these things, particularly in your own life, but when you're helping others. But I'll tell you this for parents. Your kids will say all the things they hear you say, and then they'll say more. You understand what I mean? They're going to say all the things they hear you say, especially the most edgy ones.

And then they'll go a little further than you. So whatever you do in moderation, your kids will do to excess is the phrase. Well, so you have to choose. Can I be a little stricter for these weaker people that are still in the flesh? You know, we're Baptists. We don't think all of our kids are presumptively regenerated already.

We'd like to see them happen soon. Luck. Luck doesn't exist. Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday. You guys know what those words mean? Sunday is the worship to Sunday.

Monday is worship the moon day Thursday you guys watch Avengers right that's Thor's day did you know that we literally get the word Thursday from Thor the god of thunder right well I'm not going to tell you we can't use those words so this is where it gets a little bit edgy sometimes there's just words that have just adopted a meaning that has no real relation to what people may have originally said. So the fact that some pagans who worshiped Saturn on the day before they worshiped the sun, on the day before they worshiped the moon, has nothing to do with what you're actually saying when you say it's Saturn day or Saturday. They're all God's days.

So in some sense he was blasphemed, but I also understand that sometimes words don't quite carry the same connotation anymore. So you have to think about it a little bit. It's not as simple as, hey, the guy just said Monday, therefore he's a moon worshiper and he just blasphemed God, so let's pick up stones to stone him. Another way we violate God's blasphemy law is by attributing other entities attributing to other entities God's work.

So, for example, wait oh, attributing other entities' work to God sorry, the last one was we attribute God's work to other entities so we say things like as luck would have it, we just attributed a work of God, His sovereign will, to luck the other way is by attributing something that a demon did to God, so for example and I shouldn't ruffle too many feathers in this room But when you look at charismatic people attributing the work of demons among them most of the time, when they're falling on the floor and they shoot the feathers out the windows. And if you don't know about all this charismatic stuff, we can show you. You can watch Justin Peter's videos over and over and learn about it.

But there are people who are saying God's doing things that he's not really doing. And they're blaspheming God when they do that. When you attribute to God the work of, in particular, demonic activity, you're blaspheming God. Turn to Romans 2. Now, maybe the second main point of the sermon. Romans 2.23 Paul's writing to the Jews.

He says, You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, so he's actually quoting the Old Testament, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. This is the second part here. We talked about it in Malachi where what God is saying to us is that God's name is blasphemed by your behavior. By your breaking of his law, you blaspheme his name. as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.

We can blaspheme God by our behavior. When you call yourself a Christian, you've just taken the name of Christ. When you call yourself a Christian and then you act in an un-Christ-like manner, you've blasphemed God. You just told people, I represent Christ. And then you didn't represent Him. That's one of the reasons why we're very careful when we go evangelize.

And we hold each other accountable for the way we interact with evildoers when we're evangelizing. Because I would not want to blaspheme God's name by my behavior in front of somebody, even a real evildoer at a Planned Parenthood or something like that. Look at Titus 2.5. It's a good memory verse. For you ladies especially. Titus 2.5, speaking about women and how the older women, what they're supposed to teach younger women, to be self pure working at home kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled It the same word as blasphemo The New Testament translators understand that to revile God or to blaspheme his word or his name all mean the same thing.

If you blaspheme God, it's not just, hey, I accidentally dropped an F-bomb or one of these other profane words. we shouldn't say. When you blaspheme God, he sees it as hating him. You understand that? Even if it was only for a moment, in God's eyes you hated him. Matthew 5. Jesus says, you've heard that it was said, you shall not swear falsely, but perform to the Lord what you have sworn.

And he says, but I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God. I'm trying to turn there. It's Matthew 5.33. I can't find anything in my Bible. I don't know why I'm quoting it. He says, either by the throne of God or by the earth, for that is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for that is the city of the great King.

He says, do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. He says, simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything more than this comes from evil. So God's telling us not to swear by His name. so when you take a false oath whether it's in God's name which is permissible we can read about that in the confession or whether you're doing it in a way that is against what God has spoken you blaspheme God by your behavior so has anyone in here ever said anything like this I state your name take you state the other person's name to be my spouse to have and to hold the honor and treasure to be at your side in sorrow and joy in sickness and in health to love and cherish you always.

I promise you this from my heart, with my soul, for as long as we both shall live. Is anyone in here taking a vow like that before God and men? Did you keep it? Did you keep it today? You blasphemed God. You need to understand that.

Did it mean anything when you read those kinds of words or answered the guy that said them to you? Or was it just something you said that day? These are the kinds of things that blaspheme our Lord. When we take vows, particularly in His name, when we promise to do something and then we fail to do it, usually when we fail to do something, it's because we've chosen to fail.

It's not because circumstances and all these other things that become our excuses. your behavior and your words both combine to define what you think of God you blaspheme him in ways I am so ashamed to even have to say we do it all day every day we are so wicked I texted Marco Polo yesterday right Jason I said I will never preach the ten commandments again I don't think this is horrible. We are so much worse than I realized 12 weeks ago. And I mean you too.

Not just me. I am too. But this is the whole idea, though. You're bad. You're evil. Okay?

I hopefully, if you come up to me and say, well, I'm glad I'm just not a blasphemer, we've got to talk. Because everyone in here should be starting to wonder what's wrong with you, that you're still doing these things that violate God on a regular basis. You should be in repentance. But what's amazing when we open up God's law and we see the seriousness of it and we see how vast it is, His law is exceedingly broad.

And when we start to realize how we have fallen so far short of even keeping a smidgen of one of the commandments, even today it should magnify the beauty of the Savior I'm not going to get into the whole thing with the Savior right now I'm going to leave you thinking about God's law I hope none of you die in your sin in the next 10 minutes or if you're going to I hope you already know the gospel we're going to do the gospel when we do communion but I want you right now to meditate on the fact that you have broken God's law you've blasphemed him and it's not just your words in fact it's your focus on just not using certain words that is part of your blasphemy because you've diminished the actual reality of what the third commandment has taught us and what it was intended for and so I want you to think about those things and give the men an opportunity to pray so that everyone in this room can hear the men pray I ask you to pray loud and bold because we need to hear your prayers. And then when the men are finished praying, I will come back up and I will provide the means of grace, God's healing balm of the gospel for your soul sickness.