Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Exodus 22:28

Text today is Exodus 22:28. Exodus 22:28. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“You shall not revile God nor curse a ruler of your people.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that your spirit would illuminate this text for understanding. We pray that the end result may be that we would be transformed, that we would not act out our Adamic nature through reviling you or cursing rulers, but instead that we would indeed honor you, Lord God, revere you, and so honor the king and honor the different rulers that you have given us as well, amplified by the King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you, Father, for this text. And we pray that you would do your work in us now in our hearts, cleaving and bringing to health again as well. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I had a couple of funny things happen to me yesterday which were real nice. Cheered my heart. We had for New Year’s Eve a good friend of mine Frank Spears down from Washington State and he had brought a bunch of fireworks that you know go way up high and stuff. We have an open field by us so it seems safe and everything. And of course that evening nobody’s really—it’s expected, I guess, that people do that kind of thing, but I was still a little worried about it and prayed about it while they’re all going off.

And yesterday, I didn’t see this lady, this older woman, but the older woman came to our door with a card, and she lives very close to our house, doesn’t get out much, can’t get around much. She’s kind of disabled, I guess. And in this card, it said that she is a neighbor of ours and can’t get out much, but she had really enjoyed the fireworks because she couldn’t get out, but she could watch the fireworks from her window, I guess, and it brought joy to her heart.

And she wanted us to know that she has various ministries that she sort of runs out of her home—a clothes pantry, food pantry, a clothes closet for people—and she puts out these flyers, you know, and she’s a Christian gal, I guess. I haven’t talked to her, but the implication of the flyer is that she is. And so it was kind of neat that what I was worried about really, we ended up bringing us in contact at least the beginnings of contact with a woman who is trying to be used by God to serve those less fortunate than herself and her being disabled. Kind of a picture of how our last few sermons on this case law wound up the idea of compassion toward the poor and she is in a disabled state and yet serves others.

So I was real pleased about that and we actually brought delight to her night that night ushering in the new millennium.

Another thing that happened was we were looking for the loppers at our house to do some cutting up the Christmas tree to put in the recycling bin. Couldn’t find them and you know where are the loppers? Well, okay. So we don’t know where they’re at. So I was going out the door to go out to the office, continue to work on my sermon, middle of the afternoon and I noticed my wife’s sandals were right by the door.

Now we have a little ledge that we put our sandals on so that we know where they’re at to put them on to go out to the outbuilding, the office. And so that meant one of the kids probably had used her sandals, which they’re not supposed to do, and hadn’t put them away. So it sort of irritated, you know, the sandals are there, you know. So I picked them up and I put them on the ledge and one of them as I put them up there popped off and went over the back of the ledge.

Oh, you know, I was kind of peevish about it. I mean, not majorly, but peevish about it. So I reached over to get the sandal, and you can imagine what was back there was the loppers. So God used this little incident with the sandals to bring us to realize where the loppers were that we were praying he would show us where they were and he did that.

Now that’s somewhat germane to the sermon today. The sermon is about using our tongues properly in reference to God and also in reference to rulers and frequently we sin with our tongue in anger because we don’t really believe that God has our best interests at heart and we worry about those things. But God says that he’s always working. All things are mediated to us through Christ the Savior. That’s really the confession of St. Patrick that we sang at the opening of worship is just that truth that whether it’s the created order, you know, the deep blue sea or whatever it is, the words of friends or strangers, God is mediating all things to us in Christ and he is using them all to bring us blessing and maturation and good that we might praise his name in all these things.

And we don’t see the big picture frequently. So we get angry or upset or we worry, we get anxious. And God says that no, all things are mediated to us in Christ.

Today’s sermon is the beginning of the next section of this law of the covenant. The law of the covenant has kind of some introductory remarks. Then it’s got the first section and then it’s got a second section of laws and then a concluding postscript in verses 20 through 33 of chapter 23.

So the first thing I’ve given you on your outline in terms of this text which brings us to the from the truth of God’s benediction that we talked about last Sunday into now our response to that to praise and worship and honor him and his rulers.

This first verse rather the second section of the law of the covenant is verse 28. Now on your outlines I use a big 25 cent word here. The first section is apodictic. Apodictic. Now some of you aren’t going to remember that. That’s okay. But some of you will. When you read that word again you’ll know what it is. It’s a vocabulary term that you can put today into your heads and keep with you.

The second section rather is apodictic as opposed to casuistic. Casuistic—the first section of the law of the covenant we’ve talked about this—was a series of if this then this. Casuistic case laws—this is caused by this, casuistic. Okay. So if this happens this happens.

And now beginning at verse 28 we have a whole another section of law marked off by not being like that anymore but being apodictic. Imperatives is what the word means. It’s a series of commands. So the first set were kind of like case laws, if-then clauses. The second section is clearly marked off by being a series of statements: Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. Not if this, then this. Okay.

So God clearly wants us to look at this second section as a unit by making this transition from one way of stating his law to another way of stating his law. Okay? And so we can look at this as a unit. And I’ve given you outline of this unit, a preliminary outline as we begin to work our way through it, of this last section, the second section of the case law. And it begins in verse 28 with an obvious reference to honor God and to bless rulers. It’s stated in the negative, but remember the law of God is a picture to us.

It’s a reminder of our Adamic nature, who we are in Adam, what we’re prone and tempted to do in him to the end that we might recognize what God is transforming us into in terms of Christ. And he does it by way of telling us what we’re not supposed to do, how the old man has acted out, and what we are supposed to do by implication. So by implication, the beginning of this section is God focused.

And after this duty to God is placed forth in honoring God and blessing his rulers, we’ll see next week that the next section in verses 29 and 30, the next two verses speak about first fruits and the new creation that God is bringing us into in the context of the coming of the Messiah—first fruits. And these things both relate to honoring God. We’re to honor God with our tongues and we’re to honor God with our deeds and with the fruit of our labors.

And then after that, there’s an eating prohibition. You’re not supposed to eat what’s killed by dogs. And then after that comes a series of statements about justice and the poor. You’re not supposed to begrudge the poor. You’re not supposed to overly, you know, be more just to the poor than you are to the rich. Justice is talked about in relationship to the poor.

And then it seems like the center of this section are remarks aimed to make us to be sure to be kind to our enemies. Then after that in verse 34 and 35, we go back to a series of statements on justice to the poor. And then there’s another eating prohibition. You have to not fully harvest your field in the sabbatical year, but let the animals eat it and let those glean off of it. So another eating prohibition.

And then it seems like if we go back to duty to God, we have more first fruits and festivals talked about at the end of this section. And then there’s the concluding verse of this second section of the law of the covenant, which is don’t see the kid in the mother’s in its mother’s milk. An odd verse. And when we get to that verse, we’ll look at it in relationship to what we’re talking about today because I think the very text itself and the way God has written it draws a correlation between it and honoring God in some way.

So I’ll leave you to meditate on that for the next couple of months as we work our way toward the other bookend to this text—not seeing a kid in its mother’s milk.

The point I want to make is that the text begins with an emphasis on the need to honor God and his representatives in the world and moves toward a central climax of being kind to our enemies. And so it’s the same basic thrust of the first section but placed a little bit differently.

Now the end of the first section that we spoke on the last time we were in the law of the covenant and this beginning of the second section stresses our duty to Jesus Christ the Savior King. Now why do I say that? Because remember the first section ended with a series of statements about the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the stranger and the need to exhibit grace to others less fortunate than ourselves in a difficult position. We’re supposed to show grace realizing we’ve received grace from God.

And now it moves on to say that in addition to that grace aspect of our life in Christ, moving away from the first Adam to the second Adam, additionally, we’re supposed to honor God. So Jesus is not just savior. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is king. And so as king, he demands our honor and he demands our submission to the rulers that he’s placed in the context of our life.

And so the hinge between these two sections of the text, so to speak, is this emphasis on the grace of Christ to be shown to widows, fatherless, strangers, and the poor. And the due to Christ as our king that in our tongues we should honor and bless him and bless the rulers that he’s given us as well. So there’s this stress on savior king Jesus Christ and emphasis on grace on the one hand and authority on the other.

We like to pit those against each other. They’re one person the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I also want to mention that the first two sermons of this new millennium that we’ve entered into of this new year here at Reformation Covenant Church and of this new century brings us to a movement from the grace of the benediction to now the need for fealty. Another word you may not know, fealty. Submission, loving submission to the great king.

Last week, the total emphasis was the grace of God to you. That the whole purpose of the divine service is that God ministers to you. It is not first and foremost you ministering to him. It’s him ministering or serving you. And that’s amplified at the conclusion of the service. The benediction is placed upon you. You receive the grace of God and are empowered.

But that should be balanced now as we move ahead from that sense of the benediction that all that happens to you this year, this decade, this century will be a mediation of the benediction from God to you through the work of Christ. We move on then to consider that our response to that benediction is to be to honor God with proper fealty—with proper submission to him as the great king.

The offerings begins with the ascension offering. The animal ascends before God. We ascend through the work of the substitutionary animal, the Lord Jesus Christ. He receives us into his presence. He blesses—the benediction is upon us because of the work of the Savior. So we’re transformed from being a sinful animal. We go up in smoke, so to speak, and are pleasing to God. We have been transformed. We’re new creatures in Christ based on his ascension offering.

But the second offering, the second major offering of the first three in Leviticus, the three major offerings of the Old Testament system, the second one was the cereal or tribute offering. It was given the produce of our hands. The first fruits of it, the tithe of it was given to God as our king. Yes, he’s transformed us. He’s got his benediction upon us. Yes, we’re the gracious recipients of God’s great grace to us and love through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we understand that, we will in our tongues and in our lives show submission to the great king and honor to God in all that we do and say.

So there’s that movement in the providence of God as we move into this new millennium.

Now let’s look at the text itself. I’ve given you this on your outline.

“You shall not revile God.”

Now the word for revile means to make light of to disrespect. It’s the opposite of honor. This is what Hagar did—how she treated Sarah. Sarah couldn’t have a baby and so Hagar sort of treated her lightly. She reviled her, kind of made fun of her. So the idea is here we’re not to revile, to treat lightly, or disrespect God. And the implication is we’re supposed to honor God. We’re supposed to give him weight. He is heavy. He is glorious. And we’re to give him proper weight in our tongues.

The word God here is Elohim. If you’re using the King James version, it’ll be translated gods. I don’t believe that’s correct here. It is sometimes translated gods. Elohim or rulers. Psalm 82, which we’ll look at in a little bit, is one of those occurrences. But whenever that happens, it has the definite article with Elohim—the Elohim. And that’s not what is here. This, I think, is properly translated in the New King James Version and nearly all others as God. This is the name of God that stresses his power, his might. Elohim is the strong one, the powerful one, the one who deserves honor and respect and blessing in our tongues.

“Nor are we, then the second part of this is, nor are we to curse.”

Now the word here curse is a different word. It means to speak evil of, to attempt to remove the blessings from someone. It’s the opposite of barack, the word we talked about last week in terms of the benediction. “The Lord bless you.” Yahweh barach—bless you. The opposite of that is to curse. And so when we curse a ruler of the people, we’re trying to see a reversal of their proper blessedness of their estate as being the rulers for God. And it has the implications of to speak evil of.

Paul in the New Testament goes before the priest and the priest slaps him and Paul calls him a whitewashed wall or a hypocrite and he says God will judge you. You’re judging me according to the law but you don’t follow God’s law. Then one of the guys with him in the context of this trial says will you revile the high priest? And Paul said well I didn’t know he was the high priest because the Bible says you shall not revile the ruler of your people. He cites this verse.

So it means to curse, to revile, to speak evil of. And actually that’s the way in the Greek New Testament, Paul says, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. And so he says, you know, if I knew you were the high priest, I wouldn’t have said that. I wouldn’t have called you a whitewashed wall or a hypocrite. I wouldn’t have reviled you that way.

So the text is really pretty simple really. It just simply means that we’re not to use our tongues to treat God lightly, disrespect or dishonor nor are we to use our tongues to curse or speak evil of rulers. Now the particular Hebrew term here for rulers means an elevated one or a lifted up one. Probably referred to tribal officials in its immediate context, those who were elected representatively as the heads of their tribes. But it’s also used in other portions of scripture to speak of smaller officials as well—rulers over little groups of people, the heads of tens, 50s, hundreds of thousands.

These guys could be seen in some cases as lifted up ones is what the Hebrew word actually means. And with Paul’s citing this verse in Acts 23 regarding the high priest, we understand that it has a general implication not just for the heads of the tribes but for the high priest or other rulers of the people as well. So it’s a generalized term of rulers.

And this text tells us quite simply that we are not to use our tongues and that’s the emphasis of the text to dishonor God or to curse rulers. And by implication, if that’s what we do in Adam, then by what we’re to do in the new Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, is we are to honor God. We’re to bless God and bless his rulers.

Now I don’t think that this is two really separate items. On your outline I think I said that the law here is two sides of the same coin, honoring God. And here’s my rationale for thinking that. You’ve got to follow this or you’re going to miss what I think is the proper exegesis of the text.

I believe the text does not make a distinction that you could think, well, it’s wrong to treat God lightly even if we treat God lightly, that’s bad. We can treat rulers lightly, but that’s not correct. One reason we know it’s not correct is because the word here used in terms of what we do to God—you shall not treat him lightly—this is the same word we saw earlier in the case law about how we’re not supposed to curse our parents. And it’s translated curse in the King James, but it’s the same word here.

So this word that’s used in terms of God here in the first portion of this verse is used in chapter 21 of the way we’re not supposed to treat parents with our tongues. Okay? So the text itself seems to correlate God and his representatives with parents.

Additionally, in 1 John 4:20, and I know you probably—I’ve repeated this over and over, and it’s very important, I think—if someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. He who does not love his brother whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has not seen?

The point of 1 John 4:20 and other texts which we’ll turn to in just a minute is that it’s easy to think of God as our buddy and you know Mark Horn has a paper that he’s written about how sometimes we think of God as our imaginary friend. You know, he’s like a little friend that lives with us and we pull him out to talk to him occasionally and we’re kind of buddies with him and we go through the rest of our lives in different difficult relationships to everybody else. But we’ve got a good relationship with God. Or so we think.

The scriptures turns that on its head. The scriptures say that if you are not loving your brother, don’t think you love God. It’s easy to create a God in your own image and have a good relationship with him. But God in his great grace and mercy to us creates us and puts us into the context of community. And he represents to us, he causes us to understand what our relationship to him is by our interaction with one another.

And if you find yourself out of sync with everybody, you’re like Johnny, he’s going this way and the whole parade’s going that way and Johnny says, “Hey, you guys parade’s supposed to go this way.” If you find yourself that way, your problem probably is not the rest of the people. It’s your relationship to God. And God gives you men specifically as a diagnostic tool by which to instruct you in your relationship to God. Okay?

So I think that this is really two sides of the same coin. In other words, you know, don’t speak lightly or disrespect God and don’t use your tongue to curse a ruler. If you if you think you’re doing okay with God and yet curse the rulers that he’s given to you, your problem is you’re disrespecting, you’re cursing, you’re treating lightly, and reviling God who gave you those rulers.

Just as grace to the poor—remember what we said about this? Grace to the poor was an indicator of how well we understood the grace that God had shown to us. If we don’t show graciousness to other people the way God has shown grace to us, it indicates or teaches that we think we have a special relationship with God because of who we are. We’re better somehow. We’re in a more privileged relationship because we somehow are better as opposed to seeing that we were the poor. We were strangers in Egypt. We were the widow, you know, that Elisha was sent to. We were the fatherless one, the one left aborted in the field that its parents left. That’s all of us.

So how well you demonstrate grace to others, God graciously gives it as a meter or an indicator, a gauge of how well you understand the grace of God to you. And the same thing is true of our relationship to authorities.

Now let’s look at another text that speaks about this, I think, and tells us the same thing in James chapter 3.

“Now, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, also able to bridle the whole body. So he’s talking about the tongue. Of course, we’re familiar with this passage. Indeed, we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us. So we turn their whole body. Look also at ships. Although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. And it is set on fire by hell.”

We’re imagebearers of God. And because of that, our tongue, our speech, the articulation of words one to the other is an exceedingly important capacity that God has given to us by which we can bless one another or by which we can curse one another. And that’s what this text is talking about.

“Every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. Now this is an interesting reference here because he’s talking about the threefold created nature—the earth, skies above the earth, waters under the earth—and also reptiles. Every kind of beast on the ground bird, reptile, and creature of the sea. It’s the same four distinctions of unclean animals given for instance in Leviticus 11. And it correlates to the uncleanness that effect that came into the world through the fall with Satan’s words tempting mankind and man’s words being turned against God instead of for him.

And what the writer of this epistle is saying is that God is cleansing all things—like those animals have been cleansed—the manifestation the effects of the fall are being rolled back. All these things now these unclean things and every unclean or clean animals have been tamed. He says but the tongue has yet to be have fully affected this rolling back of the manifestation of the curse.

“Verse eight, no man can tame the tongue. It’s an unruly evil full of deadly poison. And now listen. With it we bless our God and father and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceeded blessing and cursing, my brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grape vine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts. Do not boast and lie against the truth.”

See, he says, I think really we can see here that this is a very much in line with what our text says. In the Adamic nature, we bless our God and father. We’ve got a good relationship with God. We say our prayers. We honor him with our tongues. And yet we curse men. And specifically in our text, we curse the rulers of the people. We speak lightly, irreverently, mockingly, sarcastically of the rulers that this very God has put into our lives—whether in church, in the business, in the marketplace, in our homes, or in our elected officials, in our communities and political environments.

You see, this epistle, James, is saying that it’s incongruous. It’s inconsistent to think that we’re blessing God and cursing rulers. When we curse rulers, when we treat rulers lightly, when we fail to bless rulers, we are manifesting that we’re really reviling, cursing, failing to bless God.

So I think this text from James tells us a couple of things. One, it tells us what we’re addressing today is hard work. It’s work that only can be done by the Holy Spirit transforming us away from the manifestations of the effects of the fall—cursed tongues, Adam against Eve, Eve against the serpent, etc. So it tells us first it’s hard work.

Secondly, it tells us that it’s work that is measured and evaluated by how well we speak of the authorities God has given to us. That’s how well we’re showing true submission and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.

And the third thing the text tells us is that when we think we can bless God and yet treat rulers disrespectfully and revile them and not bless the rulers that God has given to us, the end result of that is the breakdown of all social order. Because the text moves from this tongue that blesses God and curses the ruler to then to say that if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For envy and self-seeking exists, confusion, every evil thing are there.

You see, when we fail to use the diagnostic test of whether we’re blessing or cursing God in relationship to whether we’re blessing and cursing rulers, husbands, fathers, mothers, others, elders, deacons, elected officials, bosses at work—when we fail to let our relationship to God be mediated and measured rather by those statements that we have, then really we’re cursing God in all of our life and he brings into us then a breakdown of social order.

What’s motivating us when we revile rulers is self-seeking and envy. Envy of their position. Self-seeking—a devotion of ourselves—and we do that through tearing down others, deriding them, mocking them, etc. And when that happens, James says that’s the wisdom from below. That is the base root of all sin, pride, and it rips up social order.

I’ve seen it over and over and over. When we’re uncareful in our speech relative to the officials that God has given to us in the church, the state, the family, the marketplace, then we’re not going to be left with peace at home, peace in the valley. No, that’s going to break down too because you’re teaching your children, you’re preaching to your children when you revile civil magistrates, church magistrates, your boss at work. You’re teaching to your children that they should disrespect God because that’s what you’re doing. And disrespect his authorities.

And guess what? You’re the last one in line there before them. You’re the authority of God in the family representing him. And so when you do those things and you tear down others, you tear down your own house. You tear down your own house with your own tongue. All right?

So I think that these are really two sides of the same coin. And what we have to do here is to give weight or honor to God. How do we do it? I want to run through now these points of your outline fairly quickly and just by way of some practical application of how we can go about using our tongues correctly relative to God. We have deeds, tongues, and thoughts. And the emphasis of this text is tongue. So that’s where I’m going to spend most of the time. But in passing, it’s important to say that what he’s going to go on to say in the next verse is to give God our first fruits, our tithes. And we cannot think we’re honoring God if we withhold our tithes from him. And so deeds are right in the text itself connected to whether or not we’re going to honor God and honor the authorities in the context of the religious institutions that he’s created.

That is also a diagnostic tool of how well we’re honoring God. Now Titus 1:16 says they profess to know God but in works they deny him. So if our deeds—if our speech rather seems all correct but in our deeds we deny him indeed—we’re abominable then according to Titus 1:16.

Again Romans 2:24—the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Now think of that. This is addressed to Jews who supposedly had such respect for the name of God that they would not intone the name Yahweh. They wouldn’t speak that name. They had so much respect supposedly for God. And Paul writes to them by way of implication here in Romans 2 that the name of God itself—I mean, that is the epitome of the Jewish understanding of their need to reverence God—is how they treat his name. And that’s correct. Don’t fault them for that. That they’re never put down for having that kind of respect for the name.

What they’re put down for is that they are hypocrites. What Paul says in leading up to this passage in Romans is that while they profess all that stuff with their mouths and while they seek to honor God at their tongues, their deeds are far from that. They’re hypocrites. They speak forth the law, but they don’t obey the law. And as a result, he says, the very name of God itself—what you are supposed to as the elect of God, see your highest priority, the beautification and respect and reverence for the name of God. The name of God itself is blasphemed among the Gentiles.

We’ll see a little bit later that when you use the word blasphemy, you’re talking about an intensification of revile—to blaspheme God is to use his name exceedingly disrespectful in an open and public way. It’s like hitting your mother or father repeatedly and you are an incorrigible older son. And to blaspheme God is to speak against him in public and with a very self-aware kind of fashion.

And so by hypocrisy, if we if you get the tongue down through what I say today and yet your deeds don’t relate to what you say with your tongue, then the name of God also can be blasphemed in our context.

Proverbs 23:26—God says, “Give me your heart.” And he tells you today, “Give me your heart. Don’t just give me your tongue.” Or even, “Don’t just give me your words. Give me your heart today.”

What we’re talking about is your heart attitude reflected in tongue and deeds of reverencing God and honoring him. That’s the way we should start this new year knowing the benediction of God is upon us. We should reverence God. Words are cheap. One fellow said words butter no parsnips. They don’t affect deeds but words are important. And James tells us that words has a big priority to us. We’re supposed to really focus us on our words. So let’s do that now with the remainder of this middle section of the outline.

We honor God when we in our speech do not blaspheme him. Leviticus 24:16. There’s an event happens here. Two guys—one the son of an Israelitish woman, an Egyptian man—gets in a fight with another guy and he blasphemes God and curses him and they go to Moses say, “What should we do?” And so the determination comes down. So this is what it says:

“Thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curses his God shall bear his sin, and he that blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.”

So there’s a distinction here between the cursing or making light of God and blasphemy. Blasphemy is an intensification. It calls for capital punishment. There is no capital punishment listed in the scriptures for having a light attitude of disregard for God and having speech that’s somewhat light relative to him. It’s a sin, but it’s not a crime. You see, but blasphemy is a crime. Blasphemy is somebody standing up in public and reviling the Lord Jesus Christ and saying wicked things about him. And the scriptures are clear that in a theonomic republic, at least in the context of Israel, that was a death penalty crime.

And why does that offend our sensibilities? Why do we feel embarrassed about that? Because, you know, we’ve been raised in a Greek philosophical mindset. We’re all good humanists and we all place the value of people above the honor of God. Now we’re working hard. Holy Spirit has indwelt us. God’s made us a new creation. We’re trying to reverse that. You know, we think if I get up in public and revile Zach and call him all kinds of nasty, wicked things—well, maybe not these days, but typically in this country, he could bring a lawsuit against me. He could get damages. I had damaged his reputation and he could get recompense for that. And yet we have no civil responsibilities for man getting up and reviling God. That’s real wrong.

So if we blaspheme God, we dishonor God and we honor God and we don’t blaspheme him. That’s rather obvious and we don’t usually fall into that sin. But secondly, we honor God when in our speech we do not speak slightly or irreverently of his name.

Deuteronomy 28:58 says, “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book that you may fear this glorious and awesome name the Lord your God.”

Psalm 83:18 says that they may know that you whose name alone is the Lord. Deuteronomy 28 says the end result of the law—the keeping of the law—is that we might fear the glorious and awesome name the Lord your God. And Psalm 83 says that what we’re supposed to do is desire that people might know him whose name alone is the Lord and Most High over all the earth.

You see, again, you know, we tend not to think of names or titles very importantly in our culture, but we’re very wrong. God says in this passage here that we’re supposed to have a high reverence for the name of God. You know, there’s that old song that we never sing—”Jesus. Jesus, there’s just something about that name.” And you know, I don’t like the song much. It’s kind of wishy-washy, but you know, the point is we don’t want to throw the baby out of the bathwater. There is something about the name of God, Jesus Christ, Yahweh, Adonai, Elohim, Lord. These are names of God that are important to us.

You know, we would not—well, we do, but in a civilized culture, you don’t speak of major civil magistrates such as kings or presidents without affixing the title to them. And in addressing men, you would usually assert their title. See, we—it’s honor. You want to say the most blessed, the most excellent king, whatever it is, we civilized cultures used to be. When we use the name of God, we should think of it reverentially, awfully, in a sense of awe, reverence, and fear. A proper sense of respect for the name of God.

And when we use God’s names lightly, foolishly, irreverently, you see, we’re violating this specific portion of God’s covenant law, which is the beginning of the second section, which sums up our duty to God. The end of the law is that we might indeed fear the glorious and awesome name, the Lord our God.

May God give us the grace of the Holy Spirit to transform our speech to be careful when we intone the name of God, so to speak, when we use God’s name. I mean, like I said, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Jewish people understood this verse better than we do. We have no consideration of it. Typically, God says these names are important. Do not use them lightly. Do not use the name of the Savior lightly and certainly not derisively. It’s dishonoring to God.

We also honor God when in our speech we do not speak allusions to God’s name in casual irreverent speech. Okay. Jeez. I don’t know what the origins of the term are. You hear it a lot in our culture. Our kids say it, I say it, etc. We should be very careful with our speech to know what the words we say mean. Some of the young people at church were beginning to look up and some of the parents are helping them look up certain words they use and they’re referencing one another. And they’re finding out these words have some pretty bad origins.

Now you know, meanings are sort of culturally defined, so they could mean something different in the future. But once you realize that, you want to stop using those names. And what I’m saying here is I’m not trying to put any legalistic restrictions on people’s speech, but we want to be careful not to approach the line of using God’s name in vain or swearing lightly or in jest through our statements given out in casual speech.

In other words, the first point was when we talk about the Lord, we want to talk about him reverentially. We want to have due regard for his name. And it’s not a bad thing to do—to begin to—for habits to form, habits of putting in adjectives before the Lord—the most blessed Lord, the most great gracious and compassionate Lord, the kind Lord, the judging king of all creation. You see, to speak—when we bring God’s name into conversation to give it content and weight instead of treating it lightly.

And on the other hand, we also don’t want to use God’s name lightly injesting. You know, and we say gosh, for instance—I mean, it’s getting you begin to bring in a lightness of approach of God’s name that we should be very careful of. We should be training our children not to use the Christian liberty God has given to us to somehow let our speech becomes sloppy and as a result of becoming sloppy irreverent.

Scriptures tell us to avoid all appearance of sin. Now that word for appearing or appearance does not mean something that looks like sin. What it means is the first appearance or the first manifestations of sin. And I take it what I’m trying to point out here is I’m not trying to bring false guilt against someone for using words that have nothing to do with the name of God. But what I am saying is when you hear an utterance like that come out of your mouth, think to yourself, is my heart and is my tongue really honoring to God, is this the first appearing, the first manifestation in public of a heart attitude of a failure to have reverence, honor, and glory for Almighty God.

You see what I’m saying? So evaluate your speech in that way.

We also honor God with our speech when we do not invoke his name in ungodly wrath. Now this is rather obvious. You know, you get angry and you may on occasion utter forth a word that is an expletive that is not a good term and that is simply wrong. It’s simply sin. You shouldn’t do it. And if you have a habit of that in your life, you’ve got to work on it. If you’ve got a habit of swearing or saying words that are, you know, not good words in the context of Christian polite company, that’s bad. And it’s particularly bad if in that swearing you use the name of God in vain, in lightness, etc.

You know, we’ve talked about the fact that the third commandment—thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain—has as its biggest application that you’re not supposed to have an empty profession of faith. But we do not want to while making that assertion that it means how we live our lives should be a full witness to Christ, we do not want to take away the correct application that we should not use God’s name in vain in terms of coarse swearing out of anger. That’s a sin before God. And it’s a sin that he wants you, wants me, wants all of us to correct. He wants us to honor him with our speech.

Now anger—James 1 says that take your anger or James 1 actually says: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

So we have to train ourselves. Part of constraining our speech in this way is to train ourselves when anger occurs to moderate our anger. We want to slow our speech down. We want to become patient. We want to be under the control of the Holy Spirit and we don’t want to be undisciplined in what we do.

Now I think that the basis for this is that we should understand we should take our anger to the cross confessing it as sin. It’s sin to respond in that way and exercise faith in our calling, his sovereignty, his care and his love. I believe that sinful anger for the Christian results from several things. One, it results from a failure to fully apprehend that God is in control of every situation. God uses sin sinlessly. He used those slippers on the doorway to show me and to show my family as I related to them his care for us, that he’s finding the loppers for us. It’s that practical.

That doesn’t excuse whoever it was that left the sandals out, but it certainly brings me to conviction when I get a flash—a flashpoint of anger—when I see that my response should be to train the kids better to take care of the slippers, not to grow weary and well-do—train and it shouldn’t be flashpoint anger. See, I’m doubting that God is in control of the situation when I get angry in that way. So one root of anger is a failure to really comprehend that God is in control of absolutely everything he is sovereign over all. There’s nothing outside of his control. He is using it all—the flashing deep blue sea, whatever it is according to that song we sang. And he’s using the sin of man to perfect us and mature us.

The example yesterday in my life clearly is a good picture illustration of a second reason. It’s not enough to know that God’s sovereign. We’ve got to know that this sovereign God cares for us. That he loves us. And we doubt his love. Our sin witnesses against us. Our sin as we let it take root into our lives convinces us that God does not love us. We look at our relationship to men too much—instead of relationship to God, I know we look at it not enough as I’ve talked about earlier—but you know, we can think somehow that God doesn’t love us.

It’s hard to believe that this glorious, almighty, pure, and holy God cares for us. That’s why every Lord’s day, God assures us of that through the supper. He assures us of his provision for us. You can doubt the love of God. You can doubt the sovereignty of God. You can doubt your own calling. Yeah, he’s loving and he’s sovereign, but I’m just on the shelves somehow. And God says no. God says that all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose. And that’s you. So understand at the base of your being, the basic part of your being, that God is sovereign. He cares for you. He loves you. He’s mediating all things to you through Christ your savior.

And thus deal with sinful anger. And don’t dishonor him by using his name and swearing.

Fifth, we also honor God when we do not in our speech pray in unbelief. James tells us to pray in faith. “Let him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”

Romans 10:14 says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?” How should they call on him in whom they have not believed? We’re going to prayer meeting today. Almost all of us, right? Going to prayer meeting and we’re going to pray. And if you’ve got a heart of unbelief and you speak forth prayers to God based and yet have a heart of unbelief, I believe it is dishonoring him. It’s treating him lightly. God has assured you that he answers prayer. God has assured you that he is abundant in mercy.

Psalm 86:5—”You, Lord, are good, ready to forgive, abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you.”

That should be our mindset as we go to pray this afternoon. And that’ll prevent our prayers from being a point of dishonor to the Lord God.

Sixth, we honor God in our speech. We do not speak evil of God or of his providence. You know, things happen and we can think somehow that these things are bad. But the scriptures tell us again that God is the ruler of all things. He controls all things for our well-being.

Genesis 18:25—shall not the judge of all the earth do right? This was the question Abram asked of God. And the answer, of course, is right. It is right. It’s yes. The God of all the earth does right in his judgments, in his postponing of judgments, in his patient long-suffering of men, in his striking out at certain times in men, in his letting the earth go on in rebellion against him without bringing the world to a crashing end last weekend. God does right in all the earth.

And when we grumble against his providence, when we speak evil or lightly of God and his providence, we dishonor him. And instead, what we should do is we should thank God in all things.

1 Thessalonians 5:18—”In everything in not for everything necessarily in everything in the context of everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Sometimes it’s very hard to do that it is impossible to do that if you don’t believe that God is the sovereign disposer of all things.

Ecclesiastes 7:8—”The end of a thing is better than a beginning the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”

How do you get patient in spirit? You get patient in spirit in recognizing that God’s timetable is not yours. That he is patiently bringing all things to pass. Your patience is based upon the fact that you know that the end of a matter is better than the beginning. When you’re at the beginning of a difficult matter, it’s very difficult to give thanks for it. You’re to give thanks in it, but then you have to trust that God in his grace