Commandment 3: 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. (Exodus 20:7)
Recommended Reading:
The God Chasers- "My Soul Follows Hard After Thee
My Utmost for His Highest
Memory Aid: Think of a 3 looking like a side view of a person’s head with the tongue hanging out.
We constantly hear people cursing and swearing and saying, “Jesus Christ” or “Oh, God” in irreverent ways. We hear them barking commands to God to damn something or talking about things as though they were damned by God.
The problem with this is that it is a public declaration saying, “I have no respect for God in my life, and I would rather curse God and join up with my friends who are doing the same than to remain faithful to God.”
But, it goes beyond that. Every time we go to a wedding where a couple is joined together into an adulterous marriage and the pastor says, “Beloved we gather here in the name of God to join this man and woman into holy matrimony”, that pastor takes God’s name in vain before a full congregation, and every person in that congregation in support of that marriage does likewise.
Think about it. If someone were to tell you that God told them to rape small children and sleep with whores and bomb a dozen churches, and light a handicapped person on fire, wouldn’t that be offensive to you? Wouldn’t you consider that taking God’s name in vain?
Then why is it that people standing in the position of a church leader can desecrate the institution of marriage so deeply? Jesus says in Mark 10:11, :And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another committeth adultery against her.”
When a preacher calls this “holy matrimony”, who is lying? Jesus or the preacher?
When we join in and support that wedding with our attendance and our labor and our gifts, how can we say that we are not uniting together with others to make a most hideous and disgusting mockery of God’s name and of his institution of holy matrimony that is so dear to His heart?
And, if we can do that, if we can assault the honor of the marriage covenant that seriously just to blend in with society, then why should we be surprised if our own marriage falls apart or if the marriages of our children are destroyed?
When we support adulterous marriages, we offend God and we take His name in vain--not just with our words, but with our behavior and with the full dedication of our hearts and lives. It takes courage to stop doing this. It takes courage to stop making excuses for this. It takes courage to have the love of God and the integrity to take a stand that is honest and to give up this kind of hypocrisy.
But, that is exactly what it takes to save marriages. And, the reason marriages are destroyed in this nation is because precious few have that kind of love, integrity, and courage. We all like to wait for someone else to have it first.
God did not give us our lives just to sit and rot in complacency and cowardice. We are supposed to stand up and be counted. Why is it that Christianity and hypocrisy have been so confused in the past? There is no overlap between the two. One cannot be a coward and a Christian, a hypocrite and a Christian, a liar and a Christian, a whore and a Christian, a whore monger and a Christian, a slanderer of God and a Christian. We can wear “Christian jewelry”, use Christian bumper stickers and go to churches that are called Christian churches, but if we live to offend God with all our hearts, why do we call ourselves Christians at all?
It’s time to end this sin once and for all and give our hearts and lives wholly to God.
