P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

CONNIE: Taking the name of the Lord in vain might be a soapy-mouth offense in some homes today, but in Bible times it was a bit more serious. Join us today as we consider how the Third Commandment applies to life in the 21st century.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. Connie, you’ve brought up some—well, should we say embarrassing memories from childhood with that little bit about mouth washing.

CONNIE: Lonnie, you don’t mean to tell me your parents had any occasions to wash your mouth out with soap, do you?

LONNIE: Well, I don’t really remember that happening to me (you know, our memories can be a bit selective!) But up on the plains of Saskatchewan where I was born, it was a pretty strict community. A lot of Russian Mennonites and Ukrainians who didn’t put up with much rowdiness from their kids. I think a few of my cousins and maybe even a couple of my brothers definitely got a taste of soap a time or two for “uttering unseemly expressions,” shall we say.

CONNIE: Well, my parents took the issue of swearing very seriously too, but of course I was just sweet, innocent little girl . . .

LONNIE: So, of course there wouldn’t have been an occasion for a soapy mouth incident.

CONNIE: We won’t go into that . . .

LONNIE: I suppose we all have a few childhood incidents we’d like to leave out when we tell our life story. But today as we look at the Third Commandment, we’re going to be taking it seriously. But I’d like to broaden our scope a bit beyond just saying the wrong thing. I think it relates to more than that—it’s a commandment that ought to guide how we live in bigger ways.

CONNIE: A point that’s made by our interview guest today, Karl Haffner. Ken Wade spoke with him.

KEN: I want to welcome pastor Karl Haffner to the broadcast today. Karl, you’re a pastor up there in College Place, WA, with the College church, welcome to our broadcast!

KARL: Thank you! Great to be with you!

KEN: Now Karl, as we were working on this program here about taking the name of the Lord in vain, we particulary are going to be looking at the idea of rightly representing Jesus in all that we do. I pulled down off of my bookshelf a great little book called, “Out of the Hot Tub, Into the World”, a book that you wrote a few years back and the opening illustration in there just blew me away! Share a little bit your trip to Jamaica with us.

KARL: Sure, I was swimming in the emerald waters of Jamaica when a local approached me and said, “do you want to buy some of this” and I had no idea what he was talking about. My brother who was with me knew exactly what was going down…

KEN: …You’re a pastor so you shouldn’t know about this stuff, right?

KARL: Exactly! And he started laughing and the guy looks to my brother Randy and he says, “What’s so funny mon”, and Randy says, well it’s just not everyday that I see some one trying to peddle drugs to a preacher. He asked, you’re a preacher mon? My brother said no, he is and he pointed at me. He asked what denomination I was from, and I said well, I’m a Seventh - day Adventist, really he said, I am too!!!

KEN: This is a drug dealer saying this?

KARL: That’s exactly right! And I said, really!? I was just a bit surprised! But as we talked he knew who the General Conference president was and he knew several other people that I knew, so come to find out he probably was in fact an Adventist although there was just a real disconnect in my mind between selling drugs and claiming to be a Seventh – Day Adventist. It just seems to me that there ought to be a connection there between the way that we live and what we say we believe.

KEN: Yeah, it certainly wouldn’t fit into the fundamental beliefs. Most denominations would be opposed to that sort of a thing. Yet, I guess we see that more and more in the world don’t we? We see surveys coming back from Barna and there are a lot of Christians that are, in name only. You’re a pastor there and you are dealing with a congregation of several thousand people, I’m sure that you encounter interesting situations like that fairly often.

KARL: I do…There are a lot of Christians and a lot of Adventists in our community. I think of last summer, I was up in Fairbanks, Alaska, speaking at a conference up there and had nothing to do all day Friday until the evening meetings so I decided to check out there number one tourist attraction, Sam’s Club! I just was eating my pizza minding my business when e gentleman sitting next to me started up a conversation. He asked where are you from and I said Walla Walla, figuring that he would respond like everyone usually does when I say I’m from there, I thought he would laugh and say, no really! But instead he sort of responded pensively and saying a lot of Adventists in Walla Walla aren’t there? That surprised me and I said well you must be an Adventist? He said no, no, I’m not….Then he stopped and said well I guess technically I am…I was confused, so he felt compelled to explain and he said well a few years ago some buddies and I were flipping through the newspaper and we found this big add for a prophecy seminar, so for fun we all decided to go and that night on a dare we all got baptized as Seventh – Day Adventists, although I’ve never been to a church, I don’t know what they believe, but I guess technically I am an Adventist. Again I thought of the warnings that we read about in the book of James where he did really reserve some of his most pointed words towards people who claim to be Christians in name but not in practice.

KEN: So this man had become a Christian so to speak on a dare?

KARL: Exactly! He really had no bearing on the way that he lived.

KEN: I guess what we’d all like to see as Christians, is that when we take the name of Jesus, we then live like Jesus.

KARL: Exactly!

KEN: I know that is the message that both you and us here at then Voice of Prophecy are trying to preach! Well, Karl our time has just flown by with your great stories and I really appreciate you coming here to share with us today!

KARL: God’s blessings!

“Above All Else Your Name Be Praised”, La Sierra Vocal Octet, from I an Tell the World CD.

CONNIE: Amen! Our goal as Christians should be to live our lives so that God’s name is praised.

LONNIE: I really appreciated Pastor Karl Haffner’s take on that point, and there’s much more good material up that line in his book Out of the Hot Tub, Into the World. If you’d like to have your very own copy of this book, we’ll be sharing details about how to order a copy after my sermon today. Or, you can just call us at 1-800-872-0055 and ask for the details.

CONNIE: We’ll have more information in just a few minutes, but right now it’s time for Pastor Lonnie’s message, “No Vanity Here!”

No Vanity Here!

One day in the second half of the fourth century A. D., a peculiar cargo was hauled up the steep grades and around the sharp corners of the mountain roads in northern Italy. Villagers watching the procession wend its way through their precincts must have wondered who or what was hidden away inside the strongly-built covered wagon surrounded by soldiers of the imperial guard.

As I picture the scene, I like to imagine a young lad of eleven or twelve impetuously running up to one of the soldiers and asking “Who’s inside the wagon?”

The guard, actually a young man only a few years older, turns to the boy and announces in a conspiratorial whisper that, secreted away inside the carriage is a very important member of the royal household, who is in the process of moving to his new home, just a few stadia up the road, up in the forest.

His curiosity aroused, the boy begins to follow along behind the military procession, gathering a few of his friends along the way to augment his courage—promising them that if they’ll keep the wagon in view, they’ll get to see (and maybe even meet) an important member of the imperial family.

The boys follow at a respectful distance, expecting that their journey will take them to some remote villa hidden in the forest.

Imagine their surprise then, when just a short distance out of town, the procession comes to a halt and the captain of the guard orders his soldiers to unlock the carriage and set its cargo free. Wide-eyed, the youth of the village stare as stout bars are removed from the wagon’s door. From inside come the bellows and roars of something that sounds like a wild animal. Shivers run up and down the young men’s spines as they ask each other what could possibly be inside, riding with a member of the royal court.

When at last the door stands open, several soldiers cautiously make their way up a ramp and enter the wagon. Moments later they emerge, carrying a writhing, squirming, bellowing black beast wrapped tightly in a stout net. They deposit the restrained animal on the ground beside the road, and the wagon driver moves his vehicle and horses to a safe distance. The soldiers gather round, with their spears pointed directly at the animal, as a brawny centurion moves forward and cuts the cords that bind it.

The boys’ eyes nearly pop out of their heads as a fierce looking bear slowly gets to its feet, shaking off its bonds, and takes a few steps, roaring mightily at the soldiers. The men keep their spear points between themselves and the bear, opening a path into the woods, and prodding the animal to find its way off the road and into the wilderness.

The boys, for their part, hightail it back home, with a story to tell the whole village—a story they’ll tell to their grandchildren.

When the convoy comes back through town, the young man pulls the friendly soldier aside for a moment. “I thought you said the wagon had a member of the royal family in it.” he says.

“It did,” the soldier says. “Her name is Innocence—and she’s the emperor’s favorite pet bear.”

If the villagers had heard any stories coming out of the palace of their emperor, Valentinian, who was the fifth Christian Emperor of Rome, the thought of Innocence roaming their forests must have struck a note of mortal fear in their hearts.

Edward Gibbon, the historian of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, has this to say about the role of Innocence in Christian Emperor Valentinian’s household:
The cages of [two trusty bears named Mica Aurea and Innocence] were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of [his enemies]. Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and when Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native woods.
Wow You think your boss at the office is hard to get along with. Well, be thankful you’re not living in the 4th century. Even the meanest managers today can’t get away with feeding everyone who irks them to the bears!

But Valentinian could. Because he was the emperor. But did you notice that when I first introduced him I mentioned that he was the fifth Christian emperor of Rome? He succeeded to the purple in AD 364, just 27 years after the death of Constantine the Great. And only a few months after the death of the last pagan emperor, Julian, known as “The Apostate” because he tried to reinstate paganism as the imperial religion.

So Valentinian was a Christian, and the restorer of Christianity to the Roman realms.

How many Christians do you know who enjoy feeding their enemies to man-eating bears? (None, I hope!) What kind of a witness would that be to the community? What kind of representation of the gentle Savior who preached compassion for our enemies and prayed for forgiveness even for those who crucified Him?

How does the behavior of Valentinian measure up against this counsel from Jesus: “ ‘But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you’ ”? (Matthew 5:44, NKJV).

I don’t think we’d want to use the emperor as a poster boy of Christian virtues, do you?

But what in the world does this story have to do with today’s topic—the Third Commandment: " ‘you shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain’ ” (Exodus 20:7, NKJV).

Well, Bible scholars are not in 100% agreement on just exactly what it means to “take the name of the Lord in vain.” There are numerous suggestions, ranging from the simple utterance of an expletive to actively blaspheming the name of the Lord.

The root meaning of the word translated “in vain” refers to emptiness or uselessness. And it seems to me that one of the most prevalent ways of taking God’s name in vain in our society is taking the name of Christian upon ourselves but not living up to the honor of that name. Making the name empty instead of powerful. In other words, not living as Jesus lived.

I’m appalled whenever I read surveys that reveal that the divorce rate among Christians is just as high or higher than among their secular neighbors. Or that students in Christian high schools are just as likely to cheat on exams as their non-Christian counterparts. But those kinds of statistics continue to come from pollsters like Gallup and Barna Research.

I’m glad I don’t know any Christians who feed their enemies to wild bears. But as I look at my own life and consider the Third Commandment, I know that there are times when I’ve been guilty of taking the name of Christian without putting much substance into it—taking it “in vain.”

How about you?

Of course there are other ways of taking the Lord’s name in vain too. In his fascinating book The Nine Commandments, David Noel Freedman points out that each of the first nine commandments is illustrated by a biblical story in one of the first nine books of the Bible. The story that illustrates the sin of taking God’s name in vain is found in Leviticus 24 (notice that the third commandment is illustrated in the third book of the Bible). The story concerns a man who “blasphemed the name of the LORD and cursed;” (Leviticus 24:11, NKJV).

The sentence handed down that day was harsher than what most parents mete out to their youngsters who use the name of the Lord in an expletive. No washing out of the mouth with soap here: “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him’ ” (Leviticus 24:13-14, NKJV).

That’s harsh! But God’s judgment here was intended to impress on the people just how serious a matter it is when we break one of His Commandments. Fortunately this kind of harsh judgment is more the exception than the rule, because our God prefers to be merciful. But the story certainly makes its point.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus applied this commandment in an even stricter sense:

“‘Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.” But I say to you, do not swear at all. . . . Let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and you’re “No,” “No.” For whatever is more than these is from the evil one’ ” (Matthew 5:33, 34, 37, NKJV).

It was common in Jesus’ day for those making a promise or a statement they wanted everyone to believe to invoke the name of their god as witness to the truth of the statement. “By the name of Zeus I declare such and such!” As though the gods could be called into court to affirm the truthfulness of what was said.

Employing the name of the Lord in that sort of self-serving way would be taking His name in vain just as much as blaspheming would.

So the Third Commandment is very broad. It’s not easy to pin down the terminology to point to only one kind of shortcoming in our relationship with God.

But one thing’s for sure. It calls us to a higher standard. It calls us to uphold the righteous name of the Lord, not only in what we say, but in how we live. It calls us to be witnesses in our community, not just by standing on the street corner and handing out tracts, but by living lives that uplift the holiness and honor of the Lord to all who see us.

Will you answer the call of God to live out His commandments, His Word, in your world?

“All in the Name of Jesus”, Ponder, Harp & Jennings, from Best of Ponder, Harp, & Jennings CD.