THE DIVINE NAME

Deuteronomy 28: 58-68
Luke 24: 13-35

The Reformer's Fire
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Exposition by Max A Forsythe

Question 53:
Which is the third commandment?

Answer 53:
The third commandment is, "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.

In this commandment we generally suppose that civilized humans will refrain from vulgar outbursts of emotional language most of the time, especially in public. This attitude is only a surface appreciation of what is going on here. The last time I heard Red Skelton on television, he concluded his PBS fund raising program with an admonishment to those who would be comedians in our day and time. He was particularly concerned with the prurient content of the great majority of his successors and especially took them to task for using vulgar, profane and blasphemous language. I don't know if those were his last public words or not, but as a comedian there were few who could complete with the classic clown who could bring down the house just by announcing his bird brained characters "Gertrude and Heathcliff".

There was a style and character in the wonderful personality of this comedian, who always closed his program with a short blessing from the Lord. I think it is that kind of style and character of personality that is in mind here as we contemplate living before the Lord day by day. Our two passages from the Old and New Covenants may well contrast the negative and positive elements of living before His face.

In our passage from Deuteronomy, verse fifty-eight is the key verse:

"If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name - the Lord your God ..."
Then in the following verses we see what will happen to any culture in every time and place which will not revere His glorious and awesome Name.

I recently read that in the swirling upper masses of air, there are many and varied germs which only occasionally blow down to our level and infect animal or plant life as part of their life cycle. Again, in the forest tree tops of the Amazon, researchers in the last decade or so have discovered enough species of insects to increase the known species on earth by almost fifty per cent. There are also interesting diseases in that and other remote places which have not affected mankind on a wide scale for all of our written history. It is said that in the upper reaches of the Congo River basin, only the pygmies of that area can survive the infectious dangers that linger in the vast rain forest swamp.

Just like Mad Madam Mim of The Sword in the Stone, little infectious germs can bring us low in spite of magic, medicine and medical care. Jim Henson, the great puppeteer died of some strange infection. In my small community, a well known and kind lady caught something similar and within a few days, she too was gone on. Let us well understand that the Lord has more than snow crystals and rain in the store houses of the lower heavens. And even the most sophisticated of societies needs the blessing of His restraining hands. In that light we should well understand the implied threat of verses fifty-nine through sixty-three. My military history books are quick to show that disease is a far greater killer than all the wars that ever happened.

Now as we consider this perspective we have to remember the healthful consequences of the dietary and ceremonial cleansing laws practiced by the ancient Hebrews. So the blessings of God's rules and regulations were often fulfilled materially as well as spiritually. In our own time, not only do we see sloppy theological understandings, but a growing lack of cleanliness as well. Within the last year there have been more than a few problems of contaminated food. I even read of a company who gave their employees a catered meal to celebrate a year and a half of safe working conditions. As a result, half or more of their employees came down with food-poisoning and any savings in insurance that might have returned was paid out with a vengeance!

Yes, many people are concerned with some of the chemical additives and fertilizers that are being used today in agriculture. Please let me assure you that if the processors know what they are doing and are conscientious, there is no problem with the vast majority of those new found products which have sparked the green revolution. The key word there is "if"! If people of integrity, honesty and character are involved in the process! But these are commodities that are increasingly rare in our fallen culture.

Whether the liberal leaders of this land are willing to admit it or not, character does indeed count! And one of the essential signs of good character is how a person relates to the Almighty God of heaven and earth. Whenever and wherever you hear uncouth remarks, gutter language and prurient jokes constantly, then there is a major spiritual problem which will no doubt carry over into other areas of life as well! You see, those who do not respect the God of heaven will not respect their fellows nor the creatures and vegetables of His creation either!

Yes, I am certain that the God of heaven does indeed send plagues to punish whole societies. I am also of the mind that those societies deserving of His wrath have participated in preparing themselves to receive any medical devastation.

By contrast as we see in our New Covenant lesson, those who walk with the Lord find Him in the fellowship of breaking bread. Yes, the two on the road to Emmaus did indeed live under the rule of those craven rulers of Israel that the writer Joseph us pronounced as the most wicked generation to inhabit Zion's holy hill. Within a generation, the very prophecies and curses of our passage in Deuteronomy came true in the falling of Jerusalem to the Roman Army. Yet in the time of Jesus, the very rulers who murdered the King of Kings were especially careful in their outward speech.

Part of the Hebrew mystic in these matters was to never ever name the Divine Name. They even pointed the Lord's Name differently so that they spoke it off key so to speak. Their habit in this regard was so incredible that it was centuries before we finally realized that "Jehovah" was not a biblical word in the strictest sense. And so for some generations, the English speaking world patterned their understanding of the Divine Name on the holiest intentions of the ancients.

The first generation of American Puritans were faithful in their purity and sought by all means to uplift the Name of their Creator in the hopes that the American natives would sense the awesome holiness of our Lord and our God. Jonathan Edwards even spent some years ministering to the Indians with this evangelical hope in mind that they would hear God's voice and respond.

So devoted were the early American Christians to honor the Name above all Names that it became the habit to avoid any sense of cursing. I would suppose that even the far too common word ain't has been despised because it in it's contraction is the exact opposite construction of the Divine Name. "Ego ami", spoke the Christ. "I am" was the one revealed to Moses and later to the Apostles. The holiness of that revelation colored the speech of the Pilgrims and their descendants. So much so, that in the once civilized educational mind "I am not" contracted to "ain't" became the special concern of generations of English teachers ever since. I have even corrected my own sons over the years for that linguistic habit. Sadly, the language that we use is only a form of holiness. The very Puritans who gave us our language habits went on to descend into the wretchedness of Unitarianism.

Would their descendants still speak of a "god" in heaven? Only out of habit, I would guess. Those who do not mean the real actual and revealed God of Heaven, must by definition use His Name in vain if they even speak about Him at all at this late date. One of my friends at school is especially concerned that the current crop of students not only know little about what it means to be an American, but all too often don't have a clue who Baby Jesus is at Christmas time as well! Too well has our culture removed the knowledge of the Holy from the public square and in that desecration have prepared society for God's righteous wrath. Last week as our Presbytery contemplated the increasing spiritual attacks of Satan upon the body of Christ, one person was heard to observe that the Holy Spirit is becoming more remote and less present in our once blessed America.

And no wonder, the blessings of Red Skelton and other notable leaders have been replaced with the cursings of a new generation that knows not our God and King. How do you know our Lord Jesus today? Do you know Him well enough to speak plainly in love and devotion your honest need for His saving grace? Do you approach Him in all humility and confess that without the presence of His Spirit in your life you would be lost both now and forever more? When you speak to Him in prayer, does He hear your earnestness? Or like the increasingly worldly throng are your words and devotions said in vain? You must remember this, the commandments would show us our utter lack of holiness and also remind us how much we need Jesus Christ in Spirit and in truth. It is not without truth that far too many people will hear at the end of the age that their surface confession of "Lord, Lord" was entirely in vain. May you go on to make your calling and election certain by examining your heart and mind by the clear instructions of God's Holy Commandments.

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