Leviticus 24:10 (1b) tells a story about a man who got into a fight and took the Lord’s name in vain.  The man was brought before Moses and held until the will of the Lord was made clear to them.  Here is what the Lord told Moses in Leviticus 24:15 (1b), Say to the Israelites; “If anyone curses his God, he will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death.  The entire assembly must stone him.  Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.”  That makes it pretty clear, whether Jew or Gentile, we should not take God’s name in vain.

This is understandable if we look how far we have come with the Ten Commandments.  First God told us he is our only God, second he told us not to make idols to represent him and now we are being told not to take his name in vain.  God is God and not our “buddy” and he demands our obedience.  Psalm 111:10 (1) states “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.  To him belongs eternal praise.”  We need to wise up, fear and obey God, because he is God and we are not.

God’s name should he held in the highest regard and spoken on that plan.  When you call someone by their name you usually get their attention.  Since God is a living God when you call his name, he hears it.  If you call him, “dear God please help me” or “God be with me today as I read your word”, he hears you and comes to be with you.

If I use his name as an adjective describing the person who just cut me off on the freeway he is going to hear his name then also.  Do you think he will have the same feelings for me, as that loving father coming to the call of his son when I ask him to help me understand the bible verses I am reading that morning, as when he hears his name followed by my opinion of a fellow human being?  I doubt it.

Let me ask you this.  Do you think you should burn in hell because someone is a bad driver?  I don’t think so, but if we don’t remove God’s name from our outbursts of anger that is exactly what could happen.   Think about it.  You are driving down the road and a car cuts you off.  Your natural reflex is to call them a name which may include God’s name in it.  As you are looking over and glaring at them you fail to see the twenty ton cement truck that just ran the red light of the intersection you are going through and bang!  You are dead, and last words you spoke included taking God’s name in vain.  Your last act on earth was to break one of God’s Commandments and your only defense is to blame it on the other guy.  Well, I have yet to find in the Bible where it is a sin to be a bad driver, but the Bible is very clear about taking God’s name in vain.

We use God’s name in our normal course of conversation which is just as sinful.  We use it as an adjective in idle conversation with no anger or malice in our tone; that was the funniest - - thing I have ever seen.  Well, it won’t be too funny when you have to answer to God for using his name in an unholy manner. 

If we take God’s name in vain we are showing no regard for him or giving him the respect he deserves.  There is no one person or thing, in the world, which comes close to the supreme majesty of God.  He is supreme and we are here to worship him and him alone.  We should not take him lightly and treat his name in a casual manner.  You call God and he will come.  We should call out his name with a sincere heart, not as part of an angry tirade or an adjective in a story we are telling.

I never realized all the ramifications of taking God’s name in vain until I was really angry with my son.  I forget what he did, but I said “G D Jason.”  I was really angry and I thank God Jason was not there when this happened.  After I cursed my little guy, I just stopped dead in my tracks and thought.  Man, Jason is my little son (he was about 8 or so) and I love him so much, and I just damned him.  Yes that is what I did, I said GD, I said God damn him for what he did. 

He left a mess in the garage, or something like that, and I was so angry for what?  Nothing.  As I said it, I could feel the anger come up out of me, the fire just exploded within me and it was all focused on my little eight year old son who I loved as much as any father could love his son.  Jason is not God, and I don’t put him on that level, but using God’s name in vain that day when I vented my anger became very personal for me.  For once in my life I realized how it sounds and how it feels.  It sounds horrible and it feels hateful! 

So that being said, how do you think it sounds to God?  We are God’s children and he loves us, and then we curse him for something that has gone wrong in our life?  Every gift and blessing I have is from God and I thank him by damning him as soon as something goes wrong in my life?  What kind of son am I, and how is that showing any love, respect or honor to my father?

It showed me the pure unlimited anger that came up from my body as I took his name in vain.  I have no reason to be angry with God and I should not disrespect him and drag his name down to my level when I am angry.  He should be exalted and not part of my angry tirades.  God deserves better than that, and he demands better than that to ensure we hold him in the highest regard.

Years ago when I was looking at how I could follow the 10 Commandments I looked at this one and since it was pretty simple, I figured out how I would follow it.  I decided to substitute another word for God’s name.  Well, technically I was living up to the Commandment.  I thought if I didn’t take God’s name in vain, but used another word, I was safe from breaking this Commandment.  I know, that sounds pretty lame, and it is (I should just stop with the profanity), but I went merrily on my way, substituting one word for another.

Have you ever heard yourself use profanity?  I have, and I sound pretty crude, like someone with no class.  Well, class is not a word people would use to describe me anyway, but I don’t want to be known as being crude and having no class at all.  Cursing sounds terrible and we can use this Commandment to remind our selves to clean up our act and our mouth.  If you use cursing in your normal vocabulary people begin to stop listening to you.  A lot of people find cursing offensive and they do not want to be around you, never mind have to listen to you.  Since it is also politically incorrect, people can use it to dismiss you even though the point you are trying to bring out is valid.  They will just bring up your cursing and start to focus on that and not the situation at hand.

About 20 years ago my wife and I moved into our brand new house.  We moved in on my wife’s birthday and we about as happy as you could be.  We had two little boys and we were moving from our two bedroom condo to our three bedroom house with a back yard for them to play in. 

When the movers showed up, I tipped each one of them $20.00 right away.  I told them this was a brand new house and I did not want any scratches on the walls and I felt the money would be an incentive for them to do as I asked from the get go and they would not wreck anything.  About an hour into the move I learned why you don’t tip in advance for services to be rendered in the future. 

There was grease going up the stairs.  Of course by the time I saw it there was no grease on their shoes.  Yeah, it was all on the brand new upgraded Berber carpet we had paid extra for.  Since they both had clean shoes they were not taking credit for the mess, so I called their office and got the customer service guy who started in about I could not prove they had done it, maybe I had. 

I explained to them, it was my house and I was not going to step in grease.  I told him, they had a big greasy truck out front, the grease probably came from their truck, and since they were the only guys going in and out of the truck, that it was probably them who brought it into the house.  He still was not going for this, so I cut loose on him.

He told me I did not need to use profanity and he did not have to take that kind of verbal abuse.  I hadn’t even started to verbally abuse this guy yet.  I explained to him, he worked in customer service, I was the customer, and we usually want service when something they did goes wrong.  In other words, he was the fire department, so get off your high horse and get a carpet cleaner out here right away.  He reminded me he did not have to take my tone of voice or the curse words mixed in with my comments.  I told him if he can’t take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen and put on someone who can.  The next thing I heard was “click.”  Needless to say, I found the yellow pages, called a carpet cleaner that specialized in “grease removal” and I paid to have it removed.

As you can see from my adventure, if you start to use profanity people will dismiss what you have to say since you are politically incorrect.  People find curse words offensive and they are not going to put up with your language.  No matter how right your message or argument is, when people hear cursing they will stop listening, and make the entire issue about your language and not the issue at hand.

About every two to three weeks, I find myself asking God to help me clean up my mouth.  I speak cleanly at work, but when I talk with friends I have a tendency to slip back to my old ways and throw in a curse word here and there.  Not in anger, I just use them in my normal course of talking.  I don’t want to talk like this, but I do and I need help from God to clean up my mouth.  And it works.  I actually remember one night when I went to bed I thanked God for all he had done for me that day and I remember thanking him for me not using curse words that day.  Yes, I went an entire day and did not curse once. 

By cleaning up our vocabulary we show respect to the people we are talking to, and we also are showing respect to ourselves.  We should respect ourselves and speak to others the way we would want to be spoken to.  How do you view someone when they use profanity?  Well that is how you would view yourself if you listen to what you say.

Respect is something we were taught at a very young age.  I remember always hearing from my parents, “respect your elders.”  In fact it is one of the first things we teach our children.  Take a moment and think of the one person in your life you respect more than anyone else in the world.  How do you address him?  Now let me ask you this.  Did he create the universe?  Regardless of whom he is and how much you respect him is he even close to God?  If you look at his life and his accomplishments versus God’s he is nothing more than a rain drop in a hurricane.

There is a direct correlation between respect and effort.  The more we respect a person or a situation, the more effort we are going to put into it.  Think about how respect plays an important part in your daily life.  If you respect your supervisors at work you will be more enthusiastic about work and do a better job.  If you don’t respect them, you will begrudge them for their positions above you, the better pay they get and your performance at work will drop in relationship to your respect for them.

If you don’t respect your teachers you are not going to put in the effort to win the academic contests they make you enter.  Why should you put in all that time for those jerks?  What did they ever do with their lives that you should take all this time out of your life to win the contest and bring glory to them, your teachers?  On the other hand, if you respect them, when they give you the opportunity to enter the contest you will jump on it.  This is your chance to shine and if both of you get to enjoy the lime light, well great.  This is your chance to shine and bring glory to yourself and someone you respect.

If we do not honor and respect the name of God, then over time we will stop honoring and respecting God.  If we use his name as an adverb or an adjective in casual conversation or in vain, then over time we will see God as a casual entity in our lives.  If we stop honoring and respecting God then we will stop following him.  If we stop following God, then we have missed the whole purpose for being here.  God gave us life, he gave us his word so that we can learn how to conduct our lives, worship him and by his grace (and his grace alone) join him in heaven.  If we do not honor and respect God, then we will not follow his word and live the life he has in store for us.

If we honor the name of God, then we have put his name on a pedestal and that will be a daily reminder to us to honor God.  His name should be honored above all others and by doing so we are honoring him.  When we say dear God, or dear Lord, or dear Father the adrenaline should rush through our body, because we have called on our God and he has shown up to be with us.  That is not something to be taken lightly.  He stopped tending to the universe to tend to us, so we need to make sure we use his name with the utmost respect and honor.  He is our God and his name should be honored.