Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
For hundreds of years people have thought of the Ten Commandments as ten prohibitions, stern warnings not to do what we naturally feel like doing, ten "don'ts" set in hard, menacing stone. As most people usually read them or hear them preached, they come across as discouraging. But now people are discovering that there are assurances of salvation in them, and that God has some great Good News for us in the Ten Commandments.
The third commandment, for example, is a promise of happiness deep within our hearts. It reads: "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" (Ex. 20:7).
Not only does it speak of saying a wrong word with our lips, but it goes deeper within. It says: don't pretend to be a follower of God when in your soul you know you aren't. Don't let people think of you as a great person when you know it's a lie. God has put into this commandment an assurance that He will give you authenticity of character. No deceptive veneer on the outside with cheapness underneath; no paint covering up flaws within.
We're talking about the kind of character God wants to see in us. If you become a billionaire, but in the end realize that your character is only an imitation, you can't be happy. So, in order to save us from that embarrassment now and in the end, the dear Lord has given us this third commandment--an assurance that if we will believe His Good News, He will guarantee to make us into a wonderful character of truth, uprightness, and purity. We will become a beacon of light in a dark world, a refuge where people will come for rescue out of the storm. Nothing can bring you such happiness as to know that both God and man honor you for being genuine through-and-through.
But God's great third commandment contains a warning that we dare not disregard. "The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." His name is holy, no matter how many times in ignorance your lips have taken it in vain. When you "see" what happened on the cross, how the Son of God took your place, died your second death, endured the hiding of His Father's face--then something begins to happen in your hard heart. It is melted; tears come into your eyes. Never again will you want to take that holy name upon your lips in anger or in jest! Now you have begun to get acquainted with the One whose "name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6).
Now your lips, your speech, are different. Like the disciples who spent time with Jesus, the crowd understood they were "different." The people said, "The way you speak gives you away!" (Matt. 26:73, Good News Bible). The proud person becomes humble, the profligate becomes pure, the filthy language becomes clean. This is Jesus saving us from sin, now!
God has promised in the third commandment that He will hold you "guiltless" forever. "Happy are those whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned. ... whom the Lord does not accuse of doing wrong" (Psalm 32:1, 2, GNB). That happiness is especially precious in these last days as we prepare for the return of Jesus as He has promised (John 14:1-3).
--Robert J. Wieland
From: A New Look at God's Law, 2000.
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