Do you have a name that people often mispronounce? Habben, rhymes with “robin” but those reading it for the first time often pronounce it like “happen” or “hay bin.” I realize that not everyone knows how to pronounce a German name but I still feel a prick of annoyance whenever someone messes it up.
Does God feel the same way about his name? Is that why the very second decree of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God”? Perhaps it has puzzled you why such a command should be listed before the directive against murder. I mean I don’t like it when someone butchers my name but I’d rather have that than someone stick a knife into my heart! But this is what we do when we misuse God’s name: we mess with God’s heart. I say this because with his name God reveals his heart to us. It’s no wonder he wants to protect his name. In fact he’s so serious about this that he adds the threat: “...the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7b). This is the only commandment to which God attaches such a warning. As we continue our sermon series on the Ten Commandments we want to learn why we should take the Second Commandment more seriously than we perhaps do.
Let’s begin by defining what the Bible means by God’s “name.” His names are not just labels but are handles we can wrap our puny fingers around to draw the infinite God down to our level so that we can examine him. “Almighty,” for example, tells us that God can do anything. “Lord” reminds us that he has the right to do anything. “Savior” informs us that God has a heart of love – not an “I love ice cream” kind of love but a robust, active love that is willing to sacrifice himself to save us sinners – an act that ought to be as enticing as picking up someone else’s soggy ice cream cone off the sidewalk!
If we were to list all the names God is given in the Bible, it would take five, double-columned pages to do so, as it did in one article I read on the Second Commandment! And if we were to explain what each name means, it would take a book the size of…well, a Bible. Indeed that’s what the Bible is: a book that explains God’s name and therefore reveals his heart. To put it in modern terms: reading the Bible is like browsing God’s Facebook pages. Only God doesn’t hold back very much while most people are careful not to put too much personal information on Facebook. Listing birth dates and phone numbers is not advisable. Posting bank account info and pin numbers is just dumb. But in the Bible God freely reveals information that opens the door to his mansion and unlocks the treasures of his grace for sinners like us to plunder. He posts revealing word pictures like “Lamb of God” that show his willing descent into the debauchery of humanity to be publicly humiliated on our behalf. And God does all this on purpose! He said to Moses after the giving of the Ten Commandments: “Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you” (Exodus 20:24b).
God seeks to protect his name with the Second Commandment because he wants to bless us with it. It’s the same reason parents will make sure that their children have memorized well their home phone number. Never would a parent say to their child, “Hey you were just one digit off. Our phone number ends in a 9, not a 6 but whatever. Those numbers look so much alike you’ll probably never be able to keep them straight. Don’t worry about it.” Don’t worry about it? Even if she’s only one digit off, your child is not going to be able to get hold of you in an emergency! No, you’ll keep drilling the phone number until the child gets it right.
Likewise, there is only one name that opens the door to heaven: Jesus. Are you drilling this truth home with your children and in this way obeying the Second Commandment? Now I’m not saying that the name “Jesus” is some sort of password as in “Just say ‘Jesus!’ on Judgment Day and you’ll be fine.” Jesus himself warned that many will call out to him by name on Judgment Day and even identify him as “Lord,” but he will say to many of those people: “Away from me you evildoers. I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-23). Why? Because Jesus isn’t some sort of “Easy” button you can punch come Judgment Day. He is more like a lifejacket that we need to wear at all times, confessing that without him we would sink to hell like a bag of bricks tossed into the ocean because sin continually clings to us and weighs us down.
Isn’t that why you’ve come here this morning even though you were here last week and the week before that? You’ve come to tighten the straps of your Jesus-jacket because they became a bit loose during the week as you contended against a sin-filled world and fought off Satan and his henchmen who are constantly trying to undo the buckles of faith. But if these are our adversaries, what chance do we have of staying afloat? Well, when your children run into trouble what do you want them to do? Call you, right? God invites us to do the same. He has given us his name so that we will, as Luther expounded in his explanation of the Second Commandment, “Call upon him in any trouble. Pray, praise, and give thanks.”
Calling on God in prayer is so simple and such a privilege but it’s probably also the easiest way to misuse God’s name. Take the Lord’s Prayer for example. When’s the last time you actually thought about what you were praying as you rattled off “Our Father, who art in heaven…”? Does God care about such mindless prattling? Of course he does! Just think of why there is a “do not call” list in this country. Those who sign up are saying that they don’t want their dinners interrupted by phone calls from telemarketers – the worst of those being the automated ones. But that’s what we must sound like when we call upon God in prayer and then proceed to mindlessly babble requests – like we often do at our mealtime prayers. How sadly ironic that is. We hate getting calls from automated telemarketers at mealtimes yet we often sound like one when we pray before our meals!
We also struggle with “pocket dialing” God. Pocket dialing is when you sit on your cell phone or somehow bump it so that you make an unintentional phone call. Pocket dialing made up 30% of the calls to 911 in Toronto last year. It’s such a problem that the police there are urging people to lock their keyboards when they slip their phones into their pockets. We pocket dial God whenever we thoughtlessly call out: “O my God!” If that outburst is meant as a genuine prayer, great! If not, if this is more mindless babble, remember how God promises, not just threatens, but promises punishment for those who misuse his name. God will not stand idly by as we use his name as some sort of punching bag on which we take out our frustrations and fears.
Contrast our use of God’s name with Jesus’ use of it. Whenever he prayed to his heavenly Father he did so with a focused intensity. When he enjoyed the blessing of food he genuinely gave thanks to his heavenly Father for it as he did at the Feeding of the 5000. Even when Jesus was in the depths of despair on the cross and it would have been easy for him to cry out: “My God!” as if the name was a curse, he called on that name for help and relief…only none came because at that moment the Father was pouring out his wrath on his Son for all the times we have and will misuse his name.
Do you see what Jesus did for us? He not only paid the penalty for our sins, he also kept the Second Commandment for us. Both were necessary for us to receive the forgiveness of sins. Perhaps I could compare Jesus to the arcade genius who knows how to work the crane game. That’s the game where, for a loonie or two, you’re given thirty seconds to use a robotic crane to grab a stuffed animal or another prize and drop it into a slot. It looks so easy, like keeping the Second Commandment, but it’s not. First-timers will quickly burn through all their loonies trying to grab a prize. If you really want one, it’s better to find someone who knows how to play the game and ask them to play it for you. An arcade genius might agree to play for you if you buy him a pop or something but he’s certainly not going to spend his own loonie to play the game to win a prize for you. But that’s what Jesus did for us who had no chance of grabbing the prize of heaven. He freely gave us forgiveness even though it cost him everything. Thank God for Jesus! Thank God that you know about Jesus and believe in him – something that would not be possible if God had not revealed his saving name to us.
You astute Bible students know that I haven’t exhausted the explanation of the Second Commandment. I haven’t talked about how we misuse God’s name when we swear sinfully, tolerate false doctrine, engage in witchcraft, or even when we read the horoscopes because we hope it will tell us something about our future. I’ll have to touch on those subjects some other time. I hope, however, that I have impressed on you what a blessing the Second Commandment is. God uses this commandment to protect his name because his name reveals his heart. It opens the door to heaven. His name is also help on which we can call in time of trouble. Treasure that name more than you treasure your own. Amen.
