God’s Name and Fear

Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. (Isaiah 8:13)

I have with some friends been wondering at the casual mention God’s name goes through, especially by people who love being called His. You can almost think that God has become an age mate. In other words, we are treating that name the way we treat that of a familiar friend, probably someone we grew up together.

If truth be told, most Christians treat their parents with more respect than God. I know of very many who are very uncomfortable mentioning the actual name of their parents, leave alone addressing them so, yet have no qualms pouring God’s names all over their conversation. Even Muslims have greater awe for the name of their god that we whose revelation they are advised to seek.

Theologians tell us that the reason we are unable to get the actual name Israel used for God was that it was so revered that not only could they not speak it, they removed vowels from it (it probably did not have any) so that they would not be tempted to utter it even under their breath.

How come that today we have reduced the same name to a curse or swear word? How come we use it to express shock or amazement?

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. (Exodus 20:7)

A vain mention of God’s name is not only forbidden, it attracts judgment.

But we need to realize that the mention of that name is the evidence we give about how we relate to Him. It is related to how much we know Him.

The only problem is that we can never become too familiar with God by nature of who He is.

For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:24)

Remember Aaron’s elder sons? They had just graduated into the priesthood and had even started offering sacrifices. Then they overlooked a minor detail (as we may call it), and were consumed by that fire. Uzzah was also a priest who was guiding the oxen ferrying the Ark of the Covenant who stepped in to steady it when the oxen stumbled, and he was killed instantly.

That is the kind of God whose name we are throwing around recklessly.

Again I want us to look at the commandment and compare it with drug abuse. Like is common knowledge, drug abuse is not throwing insults at drugs. Imagine calling cocaine names. Imagine calling prescription medicine idiots! That is not what we mean by drug abuse.

Drug abuse is the use of a drug in a way it was not meant to be used. I am abusing sleeping pills when I must take them to sleep.

In the same way, taking the Lord’s name in vain is not throwing that name carelessly, though most of us do that often enough. It is reducing or removing the worship the name should attract when it is mentioned. It is not realizing who has that name that is mentioned. It is not feeling anything when it is mentioned, worse still feeling no awe when we are mentioning it. It is when the mention of that name does not bring me down in worship to the One whose name it is.

Recently we had an incident in the news where the president visited a place known to support his political opponent, what in political terms is termed an opposition stronghold. As he was going about his normal duties, a young man called his official name again and again until he heard it.

Despite all the security, he asked for the young man to come and state what he wanted. And he was able to get the job he needed. This was despite the general population doing their best to be true to their champion by heckling the head of state.

That is what rightly mentioning the name of a president has a capacity of achieving. And it also speaks volumes about speaking that name in vain. Imagine the King of kings!

For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth. (Psalm 47:2)

Remember what Israel did when they were defeated by the Philistines? They brought the Ark of the Covenant to the battlefield to ensure that God would fight for them. To them that proximity was all that was needed for God to step in. What they forgot is what we forget when we are pouring His name all over; He will never be subject to us.

But secondly; He is God and not bound to what we seek to constrain Him to. But even worse is that when we lower Him to such levels He will desert us to the elements we had brought Him to fight for us. And that is what happened to them. Their shouts of victory were quickly changed to cries of despair because they had sought to bring God to their level instead of lifting themselves to His level.

Again let us remember Shiloh. When they thought that the place God had chosen to place His name was more important that obedience to His revelation, He just let Shiloh disappear from history.

But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. (Jeremiah 7:12)

Overlooking His person as you seek to benefit from His name is sure to bring judgment as also happened to the magnificent temple Solomon had built.

But I believe the reason it brings judgment is because the vain mention of God’s name demeans His person. We are associating Him with witchcraft as we know that witches will chant and chant to invoke the spirits they want to activate. That is also what idol worshippers do in their worship (chanting the names of the gods). This is blasphemy because as opposed to the demonic world, God is the one who calls the shots and will never take orders from His creation.

God is holy. What that means is the He is altogether and completely different from us. Calling on Him is therefore different from calling on anyone or anything else.

He also is all knowing. He knows everything from before creation to the end of time. He is not bound by time and space as we are. He therefore sees and knows all things, from our thought to our imaginations to our motives. Like Jesus taught He does not need our words to know what we are saying. He therefore can see beyond the words we speak to the level of our commitment.

And He has the power to see through our vain mention of His name in judgment.

But why do we mention His name in vain?

The first reason I will state is ignorance. We simply do not know enough about God to consider the repercussions of mentioning His name in vain. We do not seek Him enough to know who He is so that we can accurately discern what that name means to us. And we do not value His word enough to seek to know Him and what He expects from us.

And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. (Leviticus 24: 10, 11a)

This young man was of mixed spiritual heritage and so could not appreciate the reality of Israel’s God. Coming from polytheism, he thought that God was just one of the idols they had worshipped in Egypt. But that did not absolve him from guilt or free him from judgment.

Doing it because everybody else is doing it does not lessen what God has decreed concerning mentioning His name in vain. That is what that foreigner learnt with his life.

The second reason is rebellion, even if we do not realize it is such. Choosing to go the popular way instead of seeking to clearly know what God has ordered is the reason Uzzah died. You see they chose to do what the Philistines had done to take the Ark back home instead of reading His word to verify what exactly God had ordered.

For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order. (1Chronicles 15:13)

Overlooking the scriptures when we are formulating doctrines and justifying or condemning practices can very easily open us to judgment. Making the boardroom and council the determining factor in the running of a Christian person or organization easily makes us fall into Uzzah’s error.

In summary we need to know that God is holy and highly exalted. His name is therefore not to be allowed to flow through our mouths as it might not inspire the worship the name should inspire. It would be safer not mentioning that name at all like the Jews than mentioning it and falling into judgment. And I will repeat that He has said that He will never absolve anyone who mentions His name in vain.

… for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20: 5b, 6)

We should therefore study His word to be able to know how to relate with Him as ignorance will never be defensible as we have seen.