Third Commandment

Third Commandment               

Exodus 20: 7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name”.

Extra Reading: Exodus 20:1-21

There is a worrying and prevailing spiritual lethargy and passive disrespect toward God in our country. Many people like to talk about religion and God, but they do not stand in awe of His position and His name. And this spiritual cancer has within its seeds of the destruction of our modern civilization. In discussing the first and second commandments, we found that we must guard against making a god out of anything-and putting it in place of the true God. And we learned that God commands us to worship Him directly-to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to really know and worship Him in spirit and truth-and to avoid using any image, picture or physical object as an “aid” to worship or to “remind” us of the great Creator. The third commandment deals with God’s name, His office, His position as the great sovereign Ruler of the universe: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7).

God’s name or title of God reveals some attribute of the divine character. In studying God’s Word, we learn new facts about God’s nature and character with each new name by which He reveals Himself. In other words, God names Himself what He is! If people use the name of God in a way which denies the true meaning and character of God, they are breaking the third commandment. The test of spiritual cleanliness is the attitude of a man to the name of God! A man is clean or unclean according as he uses the name of God in truth-or for vanity. Do you what this means? It certainly indicates that a man is better off who-because of sincere religious doubts-has dropped the name of God from his vocabulary than is a professing Christian who talks about God continually, but denies Him in his daily life! In the Lord’s prayer, we are instructed to “hallow” God’s name. And the third commandment with which we are dealing has directly to do with showing the proper respect for the name of God.

Prayer: O Lord, give us the grace to hallow your name. In Your name we pray, Amen!

Rev. Samuel N. Modise