3. The Sanctity of God's Name! Exodus 20:7

Text: “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.

Good morning, God-sanctifying Christian!  The very thought of the Living Lord God Jehovah – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons One Lord God Almighty – causes you to sanctify His Name at all times.  You do well, beloved in Christ, you do very well.

The very thought of our inherent sinfulness, the ‘old man’ within each of us even after we are redeemed by Christ’s Blood – should cause us to reel back in humble submission in the light of God’s Holiness and wrath against all sin!  We should immediately fall at His feet in submission to His Holy will, and offer up our hearts in worship at the wonder of His amazing grace toward Hell-deserving sinners such as we!

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments: His praise endureth forever.”  (Psalm 111:10)

Recognition of the high and Holy sanctity of God, and of His Holy Name, should be the foremost characteristic of anyone professing to be a ‘born again’, Spiritually regenerate, Christian believer.  Anything short of the complete and personal sanctification of God’s Being and His Name dishonours the entire concept of true Christianity and leaves those falling short of this sacred recognition reprobate, fooling themselves that they are indeed the genuine article Christian!

Dictionary Definition: 

Sanctity – (noun) the quality of being sacred or Holy; purity; godliness; inviolability; saintship; (in plural) holy feelings, obligations... (The Chambers Dictionary, page 1460)

Sanctify – (Verb transitive) to make, declare, consider or show to be, sacred or holy; to set apart for sacred use; to free from sin or evil; to consecrate, bless; to invest with sacredness, blessedness or holiness; to sanction (set apart). (The Chambers Dictionary, page 1459-1460)

The Word of God instructs us: “ But as He which hath called you is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation (entire lifestyle); because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am Holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16)

Too often today, in this increasingly apostate, humanistic, atheistic world, we find the mouths of puny sinners uttering flagrant disobedience to God’s Ten Commandments, by profaning the Name of God; swearing oaths by the Name of God; using the Holy Name of God as an expletive, or coupling the Holy Name of God with the most filthy and offensive curses and gross language!  They utter from their mouths what their father, Satan, has placed deep within their sin-darkened hearts.  By doing so, they reveal themselves to be LOST!

“Jesus said unto them (the unbelieving Jews/Gentiles of the time), Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh (speaks and continues to speak) of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.  And because I tell you the truth, ye believe it not.”  (John 8:44-45)

Unbelieving Church-men:  What hope is there for the unsaved of today’s 21^st Century world, when those professing to be an integral part of the Body of Christ, the Church, lead the way in ‘...taking God’s Name in vain...’? 

The word ‘Reverend’ is used only one time in the entire body of Holy Scriptures, it is mentioned in Psalm 111, verse 9 – “He (the Lord God) sent redemption unto His people: He hath commanded His Covenant for ever: Holy and reverend is His Name.” 

So-called ‘church-leaders’ today not only break this Third Commandment publicly and continually by taking on the title of ‘Reverend’ – they then go further into sin and proud disobedience by promoting themselves and each other to be 'THE (definite article) Reverend'; then deeper into proud, disobedient, sin by calling themselves, ‘The Very Reverend’; 'The Very Very Reverend’; ‘The Most Reverend’; ‘The Most Holy Reverend’; ‘Father’, and ‘The Holy Father’!  What gross sin and disobedience to the Third Commandment of God!

“And call no man your father upon the earth: for One is your Father (capitol F!), which is in Heaven.”  (Matthew 23:9)

The Third Commandment teaches:  “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.”

Swearing in the Name of God: Earthly judges and legal magistrates in today’s modern societies reveal themselves to be the biggest hypocrites in personal standard of Christian belief.  They not only compel Court witnesses to ‘Swear by Almighty God’ to tell the truth; but compound their hypocrisy and unbelief by making these witnesses place their hand on a copy of the Bible, God’s inspired Word and truth to mankind!

“But I (Jesus Christ) say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by Heaven; for it is God’s throne: nor by the earth; for it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.  Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.  But let your communication be Yea, yea: Nay, nay (Yes or No): for whatsoever is more than these (in swearing to tell the truth) cometh of evil.”  (Matthew 5:33-37)

The Third Commandment teaches:  “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.”

Blaspheming God’s Name:  Modern day blasphemers of God and of His Name can be heard uttering the following vile insults to the Lord God: “For Christ’s sake!”; “Jesus Christ!" (uttered as an angry expletive); “Oh my God!” (uttered, or written it phone-texts, by crass people, for crass reasons); “God-damn it!”; “God Almighty!” exclaimed in anger or surprise.

The black hearts of those uttering these common examples of every day practice, are anti-Christian, humanistic, and their atheistic minds are revealed by the evidence from their mouths when they speak, and their pens/key-boards when they write such blasphemy into TV soap-operas, dramas, and Hollywood movie screen-plays.

Please serious Christian!  Turn this anti-Christian TV content OFF!  You are paying a T.V. Licence to permit opposition to the very faith you believe and seek to practice!

The Third Commandment teaches:  “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.”

Thought: God is not mocked!  Beware! His wrath is on its way!  Repent, blasphemers!

2. No 'Graven Image' Worship! Exodus 20:4-6

Text:  “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image (idols, holy statues), or any likeness (so-called holy pictures, images, etc.) of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord (Jehovah) thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments.”

                                                                                                                  Exodus 20:4-6.

Good morning, true worshipper of Christ!  On the full authority of God’s own Spirit-inspired Word, you and I are well taught that we cannot create, sculpt, paint, set up, or establish visual images of the Living Lord God Jehovah; of His Eternal Son, Jesus Christ; nor of any other aspect of the Heavenly Being.  There are no exceptions to this Commandment of God.

To begin to create, make, paint, set up such ‘graven images’ – in church-buildings or in private dwellings - is to call down the wrath of the Lord God upon ourselves and upon the congregations of professing Christian believers with whom we join in public and private fellowship. (Deuteronomy 4:14-20)

We cannot disobey the 2^nd Commandment of God and seek to please Him with our worship at the same time!  The Lord places obedience above any envisaged ‘sacrifice’.

“...Behold (look and understand), to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.  Because thou (king Saul) hast rejected the Word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.”  (1 Samuel 15:22-23)

Throughout the history of ‘the church’ – which I define as all those who are Spiritually regenerated, ‘born again’of the Spirit of God; from all nations and containing members of every colour of skin and station in life – there has been a repeated tendency to create statues, paint pictures, engrave imagined ‘likenesses’ of the Lord God, and of Biblical characters on wood, and canvas, and in stone.  The world’s cities are littered with such examples of mankind’s utter folly and disobedience to God’s Commandment. 

Then, after placing such creations of fallen humanity’s imagination in positions where worshippers frequent – it is not too long before history has found people worshipping the images/ pictures that were created!  Some foolish religionists have often been found bowing at the feet of statues depicting ‘Mary, the mother of Jesus’, weeping and imploring the piece of wood or stone to hear and answer their prayer!  Such utter deception and disobedience!

The Devil seems to have used, and continues to use, fallen mankind’s inherent need to worship the Creator Lord as a ploy to divert mankind’s attentions away from the true and Living Lord God and worship of Him, to pathetic creations of fallen mankind’s own imagination.  It is time for all serious and genuine Christian believers to divorce ourselves from such open disobedience to God’s own 2^nd Commandment!

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)

Let us now read what the great J.C. Ryle’s view of this vital subject was in his day:

“Let us beware of despising the Old Testament under any pretence whatever. Let us never listen to those who bid us throw it aside as an obsolete, antiquated, useless book. The religion of the Old Testament is the germ of Christianity. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the bud. The New Testament is the Gospel in full flower.  The Old Testament is the Gospel in the blade. The New Testament is the Gospel in full ear.  The saints in the Old Testament saw many things through a glass darkly. But they all looked by faith to the same Saviour, and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves. These are no light matters. Much infidelity begins with an ignorant contempt of the Old Testament

 “Let us, for another thing, beware of despising the law of the Ten Commandments. Let us not suppose for a moment that it is set aside by the Gospel, or that Christians have nothing to do with it. The coming of Christ did not alter the position of the Ten Commandments one hair’s breadth. If anything, it exalted and raised their authority. (Romans 3: 31) 

“The law of the Ten Commandments is God’s eternal measure of right and wrong. By it is the knowledge of sin. By it the Spirit shows men their need of Christ, and drives them to Him. To it Christ refers His people as their rule and guide for holy living. 

“In its right place it is just as important as ” the glorious Gospel.” It cannot save us. We cannot be justified by it. But never, never let us despise it. It is a symptom of an ignorant and unhealthy state of religion, when the law is lightly esteemed. The true Christian “delights in the law of God.” (Romans 3:19-22) (Bishop J. C. Ryle. Expository thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew 5:13-20”

Exodus 20:4a: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Art, sculpture, creative design and architectural beauty are not, in general, placed under the prohibition of the 2^nd Commandment of God.  However, if the artist, sculptor, creative designer, or architect creates a figure, picture, etc. purporting to depict the Lord God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or any aspect of God the Holy Spirit – then the 2^nd Commandment of God forbids this act, and defines such an act, strictly, as an act of open disobedience to His Commandment.

Exodus 20:4b: “…Thou shalt not make unto thee…any likeness of any thing that is in Heaven Above.  Creating ‘likenesses’ of Heavenly Beings, which after all, are merely the imaginations of the fallen human creator’s mind, are forbidden exclusively by the 2^nd Commandment of God.  No one has ever seen God’s face; the face of the Lord Jesus Christ was never painted, nor photographed during His human ministry.  Therefore, you and I today have no idea what the features of God the Father, or God the Son look like; and God the Holy Spirit is invisible Spirit form, so our pathetic fallen, puny human minds can never dare to conceive what the face of Almighty God even looks like – never mind paint, or sculpt it!

Exodus 20:5. “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.  Bowing in the presence of an idol, painting, imagined ‘likeness’ of God, is a sin against His 2^nd Commandment!  Let all true Christian believers revisit His Word – and try to keep it! 

 Thought: 46Q: What is forbidden in the 2^nd Commandment? A. The Second Commandment forbids the worshipping of God by images (Deut. 4:15-16; Or any other way not appointed in His Word. (Col 2:18)  (From Spurgeon’s Puritan Catechism)

The Ten Commandment Revisited 1. One God Worship! Exodus 20:3

Text: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me (Jehovah Lord God).” 

Exodus 20:3.

Good morning, One-God-Worshipping Christian!  Saved by the Sovereign grace of a truly Almighty Creator Lord God, Jehovah – you now seek to worship Him, ‘...in spirit and in truth...’, and to worship Him alone.  Praise God for One-God-Worshipping Christians!

“Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for Salvation is of the Jews.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.  God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”            (John 4:22-24)

Our Bibles, God’s own inspired (God-breathed) Word to mankind – as faithfully translated in the King James Bible – teaches us, not only Who to give worship to, but also how to worship the One true Lord God, Jehovah.  No other worship, in no other name or manner, will ever be recognised by the One true Living Lord God, Jehovah – God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God of king David; God of the apostle Paul; your true Lord God and mine!  Praise His Holy Name!

“Hear therefore, O Israel (regenerate Christians are the Spiritual Israel of today!), and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.  Hear, O Israel: The Lord (Jehovah) our God is One Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.  And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”  (Deuteronomy 6:3-7)

The state of ‘the church’ world-wide and international today, a state of luke-warm apostasy and watered down humanism, has come about because of a lack of teaching on God’s Ten Commandments.  The Lord Jesus shouts the warning!

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art luke-warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”   (Revelation 3:15-17)

I am now 70 years of age, and even within a non-Christian family when a boy, I can well remember being sent out to Sunday-School regularly, with other poor family children, and being faithfully taught The Ten Commandments from the King James Version Bible. 

Secular schools of my childhood were still faithfully teaching The Ten Commandments in Religious Education classes.  Today?  Few even have a morning assembly, and the ‘politically correct spirit’ has overtaken anything that even looks vaguely like Bible belief!  Do our Nation’s teachers not realise that they are contributing to today’s widespread apostasy and unbelief?  Waken up, British society leaders!  Waken up!

Does Satan now wear the teacher’s robe as he filters out Bible belief and the enlightening Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?  What a state we are in!  The blind are leading the blind!

“Train up a child in the way he/she should go: and when he/she is old, he/she will not depart from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6)

Our generations of children, being denied the teaching of Holy Scripture, have grown up to be ‘politically correct’, but on their way to a Christ-rejecter’s Hell.  What a sad state the British Nation is in at present in this year of 2017!  King Jesus Christ is not worshipped by our children in this dark and apostate day!  Demons, ghouls, and witches are in vogue!

“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man/woman did that which was right in his/her own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

Once Christian Nations, having been founded on the authority of The Ten Commandments of God, having abandoned this Divine instruction – have withered in true Christian doctrine and belief; ceased to worship the One true and Living Lord God, Jehovah; and been overrun by every pagan religion under the sun.  Christian churches are turned into furniture storage units, while new mosques and other heathen ‘groves’ of idol-worship have flourished in the vacuum left. Britain, beware!  Heed the watchman’s warning while you may – God is not mocked by your apostasy and failure to teach His Ten Commandments!

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit (capital S) reap life everlasting.”  (Galatians 6:7-8)

After God’s created creatures – Adam and Eve – fell into sin by disobeying God’s Commands, God saw the state of mankind born of fallen woman, and sought to give us Divine instructions as to how we might live our lives before Him, and with each other. 

He gave His servant, Moses, Ten Commandments which were written ‘by the finger of God’ on tables of stone; Ten Commandments that would be the foundation laws of civilized life; laws that, if obeyed, would keep fallen mankind in check, and remind us of our need to have Christ’s righteousness, by faith, if we would ever please our true Holy Lord God.

“And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”           (Exodus 31:18)

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is (exists), and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”  (Hebrews 11:1;6)

The First Commandment is: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me (Jehovah Lord God).”  (Exodus 20:3)  Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ teaches us: “There is ONE Body (the church), and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; ONE Lord, one faith, one baptism, ONE God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all (all that are born again through Jesus Christ).  But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”  (Ephesians 4:4-7)

Thought:  Let us revisit God’s Ten Commandments afresh.  Let us put Jehovah Lord God first in all things; and begin to recall our Nations to repentance and faith in the One True Saviour Lord – the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living Lord God Almighty.  There is only One God – Jehovah – let us worship Him alone.