If you wander through an old cemetery, you see grave stones whose inscriptions are barely legible. The stone has weathered, perhaps it's covered with moss, and names and dates are difficult to read. I think something similar has happened to the Ten Commandments. In our hurried and complex lives, we're not making out the profound insights those simple words have for our daily living. Take the Second Commandment, for example, or some of you call it the Third.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God on vain." I think of that as the "Ivory Soap Commandment." When little Dale said a bad word, mom got me in a headlock, hauled me to the sink and washed out my mouth. They advertised Ivory as the bar of soap you couldn't lose because it floated. Mom never lost it, could always find it when I had offended. Well, that's part of the commandment but there's so much more.
"The name of the Lord" is not simply about God's personal name, Jesus, or titles, like Father" or "Lord." "The name of the Lord" refers to all God reveals to us about His being, His redeeming care, and how He wants us to live as His children. Micah 6:8 - "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" To take the Lord's name in vain is to have begun learning and living by His truths and then stopped, like the seed in Jesus parable that sprouted but never came to full growth. This commandment is about the whole orientation of our life, on God's revelation, of which one expressed part is our language. "How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:17)
We squabble whether or not a monument with the Ten Commandments should be allowed in a town square. Those monuments are often of granite, their inscriptions won't deteriorate like old cemetery stones. But so what? If God's people have forgotten to lead our lives by these profound but simple guides, so what if they are or are not on a monument? Paul said, "You are our letter...known and read by all men." (2 Corinthians 3:2). Can people read your love for the name of the Lord?
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