Exodus 20:7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. What God approves is not the parade of homage for the letter, but the inward homage of the soul for what the name represents. I. IN RELATION TO PUBLIC DUTY. 1. Perjury. Worthily to take an oath being one of the loftiest of human actions, it follows that to take it unworthily is one of the most infamous of crimes. The perjurer professes to believe in God. His pretence is that he confides in the presence, truth, majesty, justice of God. Yet he dons this fair cloak of piety that he may get a lie believed! It is a dastardly attempt to make the righteous God his partner in wronging the innocent, by leading a jury to an unjust verdict, and a judge to an unrighteous sentence. 2. Blasphemy: to impute evil to God; to scoff at the holiness and power of God; to assume the prerogatives of God. II. IN RELATION TO PRIVATE SPEECH 1. Profane swearing. Leave expletives to those who have more words than ideas, and more tongue than brains. Be sure that reverence is the saving salt of society, and the very soul of virtue. 2. Flippant talk of sacred things. III. IN RELATION TO DIVINE WORSHIP. 1. They who are in the pulpit are there on purpose to lift up the name of God like a standard. Let them beware that they do not, through utterance of false doctrine, lift it for a lie! Let them beware of turning their piety into a mercantile profession, or using it for unworthy ends! Let them beware of preaching Christ out of strife, and of the opposite vice of perfunctory utterance; or unawares they may lift up the name of God for a thing of nought! 2. They who are in the pew need the warning also. We want reverence in the house of prayer — reverence in attitude, reverence in demeanour, reverence in worship. (W. J. Woods, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
    |