AUGUST RADIO MESSAGES/THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
>HI5 HOLY NAME
"Thou sbalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!” n p o D A Y , w e , in America, are faced with a growing problem of profanity.
pray, “. . . Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” In the Book of Leviticus, we read that profanity was a capital offense, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, He shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certain ly stone him: as well as the stranger, as he that is bom in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.” Now, if that command were ¡true today in the United States, there certainly wouldn’t be many people left. Profanity has seemingly become an accepted part of our society but it is certainly not ap proved by God! There are approximately 350 names ascribed to the Lord in Scripture. In Psalm 111:9 we are told that “holy and reverend” is His Name, I might just say here, frequently we get letters from people who ask, “Do you think we ought to call our pastor, ‘Reverend’ in light of this verse? Isn’t that a name which we should save for God Him self?” Actually, I believe it depends upon your use of the word “reverend.” I think we can become very pedantic and pragmatic about such a matter. I don’t know of any minister who wouldn’t rather be called “preacher” or “pastor” than the word reverend. The real question is do we truly revere God’s Name as holy in all of our affairs of life. Again in Psalm 8:1 we read, “O Lord our Lord, how ex cellent is Thy name in all the earth! who hath set Thy glory above the hea vens.” We are a strange race of peo ple. Most men, whether bom-again Christians or not, pray at some time or other. They may offer the “fox-hole” variety, but when the pressure is on, (Continued on Next Page) 11
How tragic that nothing remains sac red. A school teacher related this amus ing incident as indicative of the trend of our day. A woman was rightly con cerned about her little boy, Johnny, who was picking up so many swear words at school. She wrote a note to the principal declaring rather heatedly, “Dear Sir: If all Johnny learns at school is, swear words, I’m going to keep him at home and teach him my self.” Sociologists tell us that Johnnys across our land are exposed to cursing earlier, and in a more widespread man ner, than at any time known in the history of our Country. Instead of a shrug of innocuous complacency we need, to be alarmed at the growing use of profanity in every area of living. With this problem of profanity, and our many other problems of the hour, we turn now to a study of each of the Ten Commandments, given by Almigh ty God as His perfect standard of right eousness. While the Law cannot save us, it reveals that we are all sinners, therefore we need a Saviour — the Lord Jesus Christ. The Third Commandment, found in Exodus 20:7, is summarized in these few words, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain . . .” In Matthew, chapter six, the words of our Saviour are recorded — they are sometimes referred to as The Lord’s Prayer. Actually, it is more properly known as the prayer which our Lord taught to His disciples. The Lord’s prayer is beautifully recorded in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, where He, as the High Priest, inter cedes for His people. In Matthew 6, our Saviour instructed the disciples to
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