(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The part of chapter I wanted to look at there was look at verse 23. The Bible says, Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonors thou God, for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you. Now the title of my sermon tonight is, Taking the Name of the Lord in Vain. And before we really dive into Romans chapter 2, let's flip over to Exodus chapter 20 if we would real quick. I want to kind of lay down a foundation before we really get into this text of what is, what does it mean to blaspheme? What does it mean to take the name of the Lord thy God in vain? Let's go to Exodus 20, look at verse 7, the Bible says, 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. Now skip over, go to Deuteronomy chapter 5, Deuteronomy chapter 5. This is the third commandment that God gives to Moses at Mount Sinai. And if God's going to give us a commandment, one of the ten commandments, that's what it's labeled as in the Bible, I think it's going to be pretty important. So go to Deuteronomy 5, look at verse 11, it says, 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. Now if you compare those two verses, they're absolutely identical. It says the exact same thing. So God gave us this commandment twice, the exact same way, for a very specific reason. And when I was thinking about the ten commandments, I was thinking about the law. You know, God was giving the law to the saved. He was giving the law to the Christians, he was giving the law to God's people. He wasn't giving it to the unsaved, he wasn't giving it to the heathen, he wasn't trying to give them the law. No, he's trying to give it to the saved. And I think a lot of Christians today, a lot of people, they kind of take this commandment for granted. They kind of just, oh, everybody kind of knows that, or everybody's maybe doing this well or something. But I don't think it's preached on very often, and if it's the third commandment in the law, I mean, if it's one of the ten commandments, I think it's really important. It's something that we should pay attention to and see what does the Bible really say about it. Now I think the most primary application everybody pretty much understands, it would be whenever you're taking one of God's names and you use it irreverently. So you're not actually talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not actually talking about God or Jehovah or God Almighty, but you use his name as basically a replacement for a cuss word. And we see this is common in the world out today. I mean, if you go outside these walls, you're more than likely going to run into somebody that's using God's name in vain, that's taking the name of the Lord in vain. In the workplace, just out, you know, if anybody, you watch TV, if you don't watch the movies, if you listen to any kind of worldly music, I mean, they're constantly blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ. They just constantly take his name in vain and they say it just literally, they'll use the word Jesus Christ very irreverently, they'll mix it with cuss words. They have all kinds of different forms and it's very wicked sin. God says he won't hold him guiltless and taking his name in vain. Not every commandment has an extra warning attached to it. Some of them just say thou shall not kill. This one he says, hey, you better watch out buddy because I'm not going to hold you guiltless and takes my name in vain. This isn't something to take lightly. This isn't something to just pass over. This isn't something that's just a minor sin. No, this is a big deal under the Lord Jesus Christ. And I personally, I don't think that you should do any of the forms of it. Even sometimes people substitute the word God with, you know, gosh or golly or goodness or maybe they'll just, you know, hyphenate it. They'll say like O-M-G or G-D or these type of things. I think that's also being blasphemous because if you look at taking the name of the Lord in vain, it's just making it less reverent. Not very, you know, you're not taking it very special. And just because you're slightly altering it or changing it a little bit, you're still kind of degrading the Lord Jesus Christ name. You're bringing it down, you're not holding it up with the most reverence that you could possibly do. And we sang the song, you know, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know. But then they go outside these walls and they just use it as a cuss word, use it as a byword, meaning that you have no respect for the name of our Lord and Savior. You have no respect for God, no respect for the Creator, no respect for the person that rains out goodness and blessings on all people. He says he rains on the good and the bad. You know, sometimes we go out the door, we knock on the door and the person's clearly unsafe but we're talking to him and it's like, I know God's blessed me. And at first I used to think that was wrong but honestly the Bible says that God blesses the, you know, he rains on the good and the bad, obviously everything that we get that's good is from God. Our job, our family, all the good things that we have are just blessings that God's given us long suffering under the unsaved and under the heathen. But they still take his name in vain and we as God's people should be extremely careful to watch our tongue, to not say that which is irreverent, to not bring down the Lord Jesus Christ's name, to not, you know, use his word, use his name as a cuss word. And I was looking in the dictionary at the word blasphemy. It says, the act of offense or speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things, profane talk. Some of the synonyms are profanity, sacrilege, irreligion, irreverence, taking the name, the Lord's name in vain. So even in the dictionary they say blasphemy is taking the Lord's name in vain. Swearing, cursing, impiting, desecration. I mean these are just horrible things that we should avoid. And then if you look at the word sacrilege, it says a violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred. And that's what they're doing. They're taking Jesus's name and they're misusing it. They're using it improperly. They're not talking about him. They're not giving praise and glory under the Lord Jesus Christ. They're just letting filth come out of their mouth. And you say, well why do people even do that? It's usually because of some type of grief or some type of suffering or something negative happens to you and then somebody just blurts out a blasphemous thing. They use the Lord's name as a cuss word. Maybe you have some hot coffee and you spill it on your leg and it hurts and the person blasphemes or you're working outside and you got the hammer in your hand and you smash your thumb and then you just let it slip or you know you're driving down the road and somebody just cuts right in front of you and you just get real angry and you scream out. But we see a lot of times it's when there's something negative happening to you or something that's kind of quick or sudden. It's just something that's not positive. Some type of affliction, some type of suffering and if you don't already have it settled in your heart, the Bible says from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. You need to have a high respect for God and then you wouldn't use his name irreverently. You would just use it as a cuss word. If you're singing praises unto God, if you have a high respect for God in your heart you're not going to let that slip when that bad circumstance happens. But if you're letting it slip, it's showing that maybe you don't have as high a reverence for God as you need to because when you let it slip, you should say, wow, he's not going to hold me guiltless if I take his name in vain. That's a big sin. That's something that I should pay attention to. Go to Psalms chapter 74 if you will, I'm going to show you some examples of how the wicked constantly are taking God's name in vain. The Bible says in Romans chapter 1 verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Why did the unsaved always constantly blaspheme? I mean the, the, the reprobate, he doesn't even want to think about God. So he just tries to bring him down by using his name as a cuss word, by trying to make it just some kind of fill or some kind of irreverence to say I don't believe in God or I don't like God so I'm just going to use his name as a cuss word. Look at Psalm 74, 10 right at your turn, it says, Oh God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name forever? He said, look, these guys are just constantly blaspheming your name. They're always, you know, using your name irreverently. We know the Lord Jesus Christ is long suffering under those that are unsaved, but the unsaved, they're going to constantly blaspheme and blaspheme and blaspheme until they either get saved and get right or they die. Go to a second Samuel 22 if you would, second Samuel 22, I'll read for you a couple other pages. It says in Psalm 74, 18, remember this, that the enemy hath reproach O Lord and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. The Bible says in Psalms 139, 20, for they speak against thee wickedly and thine enemies take thy name in vain. The enemies love to blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ. They love to tear down his name. They love to attack the name of Jesus Christ. That's why if anybody's attacking the Lord Jesus Christ's name, you should know, get away from this person, have nothing to do with them. Like that Yeshua movement, that thing is just always attacking the name of Jesus Christ. They see blasphemous things against the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They try to say that it's like some, you know, Greek name for like Zeus or some weird, you know, hybrid thing of some archaic language that they said it's not the name, the Lord's name is Yeshua. Well, there's no authority to prove that his name is Yeshua and in the Greek New Testament his name is Zeus, which is transliterated in English as Jesus. That's how we get the authority. That's where we get the name. But these people that want to attack his name, we should just run away screaming. I mean, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is so, is so important and to me it's one of the proofs. You know, obviously I don't base my faith on this or anything, but I think it's a good proof of the fact that Jesus is the Lord because what other name does just every nation under heaven blaspheme? I mean, are there people today going out and blaspheming Allah and blaspheming Buddha and blaspheming Joseph Smith? I mean, no, it's only the Lord Jesus Christ. It's always from the Bible. They're always blaspheming the God of the Bible. Why? Because if you're blaspheming some unsaved devil, there's no power there. They're trying to tear down the true God. They're trying to tear down the name that has power. They're trying to make something that is reverent, irreverent. Joseph Smith's name is already irreverent. Nobody cares about that. It's already junk. It's already tarnished. They're trying to tarnish the only real God, the only real Lord Jesus Christ. So they use his name as a swear word. Why? Because everything's attacking Jesus Christ. Everything's attacking this Bible because it's the truth. They're only going to attack the truth. I had you turn to 2 Samuel 22. So I want to kind of, you know, show what we should be doing first before we really get into the rest of the sermon too, because the Bible says one of the most common commands is for us to just praise the Lord, to praise the Lord Jesus Christ, to lift up his name, to give honor and glory to his name. Look at 2 Samuel 22 verse 50, therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen. I will sing praises unto thy name. So what should we be doing about Jesus Christ's name? We should be singing praises unto his name. Like we just did in this service. Go to Psalms chapter 7 if you would. We're going to look at a lot of, a lot of Psalms real quick in a row. I'll read for you from 1 Chronicles 29 the Bible says, thou therefore our God, we thank thee and praise thy glorious name. Look at Psalms 7 verse 17, I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord most high. Flip up, look at chapter 9, chapter 9 verse 2. I will be glad and rejoice in thee. I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most high. Go to chapter 18. Flip over a couple of chapters, chapter 18 and look at verse 49, the Bible says, therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen and sing praises unto thy name. Look at 22, chapter 22 verse 22. I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation. I will praise thee. And he's saying I'm going to declare your name, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of the congregation. That's where we're supposed to get together and sing praises unto the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a command from the Bible. That's not just a good idea, a suggestion, no it's a command that we should be giving honor and glory unto the Lord Jesus Christ's name. Go to chapter 44, let's look at a lot more of these. There's so many. I couldn't just show you every single time that the Bible's telling us to do this, but I want to show you a lot of them so we can get in our mind because I think if we have this attitude, if we have this mindset that we're supposed to constantly be praising the Lord Jesus Christ, giving glory and honor to his name, holding it in high esteem, we won't want to speak irreverently about his name. We won't want to blaspheme his name. We won't want that to slip out of our tongue. Look at chapter 44 verse 8. In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever, Selah. Look at chapter 45, just one chapter more, look at verse 17. I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations, therefore shall the people praise thee forever and ever. Look, we're supposed to make the Lord's name remembered in all generations. We need to be teaching all the children, all the young ones, all the college kids, all the high school kids, the junior high, the little kids, the babies, the infants, every generation needs to know the Lord Jesus Christ. They need to give glory and honor unto his name so that it can be remembered because if you don't teach it to the children, they'll forget. They won't remember his name. We see this constantly in the Bible. We see constantly generations forgetting the Lord, generations not giving praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, not trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. I think it's probably a direct result of the fact that they weren't constantly reminding them to give glory to God. We need to be constantly reminding the young people that every generation to be giving praise and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to chapter 54, look at verse six, I will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy name O Lord for it is good. His name is good and not only that, he says he'll freely sacrifice. God likes it when you out of the abundance of your heart want to praise God. Not just, not just going through the motions, not just showing up to church, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. No, he wants you to sing from the heart. He wants you to make a joyful noise, a loud noise, sing with all your heart. God loves it when his children aren't ashamed of his name, but they're going to sing it loud. They're going to sing it with joy, with happiness, with zeal. God wants you to be in, he wants you to sing songs of joy. I mean you go to the, if you look at the rock concerts today, you look at all the heathen, man they are jamming at those concerts. They just love their, they can't, they're just screaming the songs and they're so happy. That's what God's people should be like. Now obviously we should be decently in order. We should be like chaotic, but I'm just saying they have a lot of zeal, don't they? They have a lot of appreciation, they really enjoy it. That's what God's people like, that's what God wants us to be like. He wants us to sing with a lot of joy, with a lot of praise. You know what, it'll change your attitude. You can come in here upset and depressed and beat down, but then when you give glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ, it'll lift your spirits. Go to chapter 66, chapter 66, look at verse 2, sing forth the honor of his name, make his praise glorious. So obviously he wants us to do it well. He doesn't want us to just come in here and just be a free for all and did not even try hard and just, oh just take it lightly. No we should take praising the Lord Jesus Christ very seriously. We should give it, we should make a glorious noise. We should do it with skill and with all of our strength, not just half-hearted. Look at chapter 68, look at verse 4, sing unto God, sing praises to his name, extol him that writeth upon the heavens by his name Japheth, and rejoice before him. So again, it's just singing praises to his name, make his name glorious. Go to chapter 69, look one over more, it says, I will praise the name of God with a song. Look at verse 30, I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. Why can we sing so many praises to God and have so much joy? Because we can be thankful for what he's given us. He's given us everything. He's given us eternal life, he's blessed us, you know, a lot of us with family members, with children, with a wife, with a spouse, with good parents, with a great church, with a great pastor, you know, we live in a great place, I mean I love living in Phoenix. I think it's great. We have so many things to be thankful for that the Lord Jesus Christ has given us. Go to Psalms 99, but constantly, it's saying give praise to his name, give praise to his name. Maybe it's starting to make a little bit more sense why he gave us the command that we shouldn't take his name in vain, because it's a big sin. If we're constantly supposed to be praising it and giving glory under it, when somebody just throws it on the ground and makes it mud and is irreverent about it and just uses a cuss word, it makes God really angry, because you're doing the exact opposite of what he's constantly commanding us to do. I mean, I'm going to show you a lot of verses because I want this drilled in your mind. Go to Psalms 99 verse 3, let them praise thy great and terrible name for it is holy. God's holy. We can give praise to him because he's holy. Go to Psalms 135, 135, so we're going through the book of Psalms where it gives us so many commands for us to praise the name of the Lord. Look at verse number 1, praise ye the Lord, praise ye the name of the Lord, praise him, O ye servants of the Lord. You want to know what's wrong with all of modern contemporary music today? How many verses have we already read that just says praise his name, give glory to his name, his name is holy, it's good. How many songs of the contemporary music say those words ever? They never do. They're always about me and all God loves me and it's all about what I'm going to do and I'm going to do this. No, it's all the praise is going to him, all the praise is to his name, to his glory. He's holy. He's good. He's merciful. He's righteous. We're supposed to be giving praise unto God, that's why we should model our music after the Psalms. That's why we should be singing the Psalms literally and modeling the rest of our music like the Psalms, like the hymns do. I mean, sometimes you read the hymns and it's just like all these verses from the Bible just mixed together. It's great. Look at verse three, praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praise unto his name, for it is pleasant. But singing praise unto the Lord is pleasant. It's great. It should be something that it's not only giving him honor and glory, but it's also refreshing our mind, it's restoring our soul, it's pleasant, it's good, it can bring us joy. Go to 145, chapter 145 in Psalms. So we're looking at a lot of different verses here. I just wanted to kind of go through and show a lot of these because I think it really helps us see the importance of why God doesn't like the sin of taking the name of the Lord in vain. Psalms 145, verse two says, every day, every day will I bless thee and I will praise thy name forever and ever. God doesn't want us to just do it in the church. He wants us to do it in the church. He wants us to praise him every day though. Every single day we should be giving honor and glory and praise and singing songs and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord is what the Bible clearly says. So go to Hebrews chapter two, Hebrews chapter two. So we've looked at a lot of Old Testament, we've looked at a lot of the Psalms. I'll read for you from Daniel, one other place that says in Daniel two, verse 20, Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever for wisdom and might are his. So Daniel, he's blessing the name of God forever and ever. Hebrews chapter two, look at verse 12, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. So even in the New Testament, it reiterates the same thing and the church was supposed to come together and sing praises under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, unto God, making, you know, declaring his name unto the brethren. It's for the brethren. It's not for the unsaved. It's not for the heathen. God's commands are for God's people. We're supposed to be singing, we're supposed to be admonishing one another, exhorting one another. Man, when I see another brother singing with all his heart in the Lord, it makes me want to sing with all my heart in the Lord. It encourages me. It makes me want to sing with, you know, make a joyful sound, sing loud. And everybody in this room when I'm singing is singing really quiet or isn't singing. I'm going to feel a little bit, you know, kind of uncomfortable, maybe a little awkward. I mean, can you imagine what if we all started singing? You're the only person singing loud. I mean, everybody's just kind of like, and you're just like, Jesus, Jesus. I mean, of course we should do it, but it's, it's kind of brings you down a little bit. But what if everybody's singing really loud? It's going to make you want to sing a little bit louder. Maybe, you know, you might not feel as comfortable, but we see that it encourages, you know, the singing and making praise of the Lord and encourages others. Iron sharpens iron. We see that that's why it's so important that we're declaring it under our brethren to give us all boldness, to give us all courage, to be filled with the spirit. So let's go to Leviticus 24. Let's go back. We see why it's so important to see the name of God is super important. It's a big deal to God. We shouldn't take it irreverently. We shouldn't just use it as a cuss word, as a byword. And of course, I mean, I believe I've done it before whenever, you know, I had maybe hit my hand with a nail or had something bad happen to me or I used to have this really bad attitude and I'd play golf and I'd play golf and I'd hit a bad shot and it caused me to get so angry that I would just say something mean. But you know, if you always have a good attitude, if you're not quick to anger, you're going to eliminate a lot of opportunities for you even to just say something bad anyways. If you're not quickly upset, you're not going to be just saying wicked things anyways. Whether or not you're blasting or not, whether you're placed that with something that's just like oh man or good night or something, maybe that's not necessarily blasphemous. But if you're never getting upset, you're never really getting an opportunity to blast. Happy people are walking down the street blasting the Lord Jesus Christ. It's always the guy that's really upset or really mad or that's having a bad day or something bad just happened to him or something negative. So if you can withstand all the negative things, just look, negative things are going to happen to you. Do you drive? I mean, do you drive in a big city? You're going to have people cut you off and pull in front of you and do all kinds of weird stuff. I mean, negative things are going to happen to you every day. So if you're not quick to anger, if you're not somebody that's just quick to just blurt out something, if you can just have a lot of joy in your heart, if you can have a good attitude, you're already going to eliminate and reduce a lot of opportunities for you to even blast me. Let's look at Leviticus 24. Let's look at somebody that did blaspheme the Lord. This is very important to God. Let's see what he thinks about it. Leviticus 24 verse 11, and the Israelite, this woman's son, blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed and they brought him unto Moses and his mother's name, LaShelamith, and the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. So we have a kid who blasphemed the name of the Lord and we know that God said he won't hold him guilt as to take up the name of the Lord thy God in vain, right? So what is he going to do? What's the punishment? Look at verse 16, and he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death and all the congregation shall certainly stone him as well the stranger as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord shall be put to death. That's a harsh penalty. I mean, that's harsh. The guy that blasphemed the Lord is now put to death, meaning God thinks this is a big sin. This is not a minor sin. This is not something that God takes lightly. No, either guy got a death penalty in the Old Testament. Go to Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12. There's another form of blasphemy that's used in the Bible that's very serious under the Lord Jesus Christ. It's something that God does not take lightly when you use his name and turn it as mud. There's another way that the Bible talks about blasphemy, though, it takes very seriously. Look at verse 31 says, Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven under men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven under men. Now, a lot of people sometimes they get confused and what blasphemy the Holy Ghost is or or what that even means. The Bible in the context of this chapter makes it very clear that when Jesus Christ was performing miracles by the Spirit of God, that when the Pharisees saw those miracles and they said that he did it by the power of Beelzebub, that that's what he's saying was the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, was the fact that he was performing miracles by the power of God. And they were saying he's doing by the power of devils. So it's pretty much impossible to be believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, as God, when you think he's an unsaved, false prophet, devil doing powers by the works of Satan. I mean, you can't be believing on Christ, right? But he's saying these people have such a hardened heart to look at the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh and see him perform a miracle that if they can't even believe on him then, they're never going to believe on him in the future and he hardens their hearts. And guess what? They're never going to be forgiven. They're damned. They're reprobate at the point when they can look at Jesus Christ performing miracles by the Spirit of God. And they're like, this is the devil, this is Satan. I mean, God says, God says this is so serious that he's not going to ever forgive that sin. He's never going to take it, you know, guiltless. So some people would question, they say, well, can anybody commit that sin, you know, now? Because we don't have Jesus Christ necessarily walking in the flesh today or performing miracles that we can literally witness with our eyes. I would say that you can't be really dogmatic about that answer. But I do believe that if someone's, you know, seeing the power of God or sees the power of God through the gospel and is just blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ and saying he's an unclean spirit, he's an unclean devil and they just hate on God. The Bible makes it clear in Romans 1 that people can become reprobate in the New Testament. People can, if they hate God and they don't want to believe on him, they don't want to retain him as knowledge, they're saying that he's having an unclean spirit. I believe that person can become a reprobate. But I would say that this sin is not necessarily so, you know, dogmatic that, yeah, we can definitely replicate that exact scenario today and people can commit that sin. But I do believe people can on this life today commit a sin that causes them to where they will not be saved in the future. The fact that they will never actually believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they'll never give him the reverence, and God takes this sin of blasphemy very seriously. And I think this verse is interesting because I think it's a proof, it's not necessarily a solid proof, but it's a proof of the Trinity, of the fact that we have multiple persons within one Godhead, because we see that if you blaspheme against the son, the son of God, the son of man, it says it would be forgiven, but it says if you blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, it wouldn't be forgiven. Now if they're the exact same person, how could that make any sense? How could you blaspheme the same person in one way it would work and one way it wouldn't? And the people that would try to wiggle out of this, they would say, well, that's just because Jesus Christ was like a man on this earth, but if you blasphemed a deity, then you wouldn't, you know, then it would be unpardonable. But that would be saying that Jesus Christ wasn't a deity on this earth. That's a really wicked false doctrine because we know that God was manifest in the flesh. And so these people, they take really easy verses to be understood, verses that say, hey, if you blaspheme Jesus, you could potentially be forgiven, but if you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, you can't, and they have to twist it and make it weird, but if they're false doctrine and saying that Jesus is the Holy Spirit, well now this verse just slipped on his head. What if we substitute those two? What if I said, well, blaspheme against the Holy Ghost would be forgiven, but against Jesus it wouldn't. Now that's saying the exact opposite of this verse. They're not interchangeable. You can't just play mad gab with the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ and the Father. You can't just take the Father here and change it with the Jesus and change it with the Holy Ghost. Then all the verses don't make any sense. Go to John chapter three. I want to show you one verse. Some people want to play mad gab with God. They want to say, well, since Jesus is the Father, I mean, then he's the Holy Spirit too, and they're all the same. Go to John chapter three. Let's look at verse 34. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. Now if you're going to play mad gab, let's read these verses again. So you say, well, for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit to the Father by measure unto him. Jesus loved the Holy Ghost and hath given all things in his hand. That doesn't make any sense. You can't just take all these people and just interchange them and just replace them with each other because then the verse doesn't even make any sense. Why? Because they're distinct persons, because they are one, they are one God. We serve one Lord, but they're distinct persons, and it makes a distinction here with the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost that there's a special case where if you blaspheme the Holy Ghost, if you see the power of the Holy Ghost and you blaspheme that, you're done. But somehow if you blaspheme Jesus Christ, it's still confidential to be forgiven. Why? Because they're distinct persons. So go to 2 Kings chapter 18. Why do people blaspheme? Because something negative is happening to them, because they have no respect, okay? My first point tonight, I kind of just tried to lay a little of the foundation of what blasphemy is. Why do people blaspheme? My number one point is because they have no respect for the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the unsaved, no respect for Jesus Christ. That's why they constantly use his name as a cuss word. They constantly use it as mud. They constantly throw it around like some, you know, irreverent speech. 2 Kings chapter 18, looking at verse 34, where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpeth? Where are the gods of Sepharvayim, Hinnah, and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? I'll read for you from Isaiah 36, it says basically the same thing. Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpeth? Where are the gods of Sepharvayim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? So we have a little bit of a story here, I'm going to just for a second time just kind of tell you what's going on here. We have the heathen coming onto the Jerusalem, and they're going to, they're going to, or to the, sorry, the northern kingdom, and they're going to destroy it. But we see that the king of Syria, or the king of Syria, he's saying, look, I've already conquered all these other nations, I've already conquered the gods of Hamath and of Arpeth, the gods of Sepharvayim, Hinnah. He's like, don't have confidence in your god, because I've already destroyed all the other gods, your god's just the same as all the other ones, I'm going to come and destroy them too. He had no respect for God. And I'll read for you from Isaiah 37, when it was talking about this, it says, and they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, this day is a day of trouble and rebuke and of blasphemy, for the children are come to the birth and there's naught yet strength to bring forth. So when this guy's saying, look, God's just like these other false gods, that was a great blasphemy unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Because there's only one God. He's not liking all these false gods and all these wicked people. But the ungodly, the unsaved, they have no respect for Jesus Christ, so they're bringing him down. And he's saying it's a great blasphemy. So when people have no respect for God, they're going to blaspheme his name. So if you're blaspheming his name, it's showing you don't have much respect for the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart. Go to Revelation chapter 13, I'll read for you from Revelation 17, it says, So he carried me away in the spirit of the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. We know that the Antichrist, he is, he's going to have names of blasphemy. Why? Because he's, he's tearing down the name of Jesus Christ and he's lifting up himself. Jesus Christ said, I come in my father's name and they didn't receive him. One will come in his own name and him will they receive? Right. Well, he's going to have a name. He's going to blaspheme the name of Jesus, I believe. I don't think he's going to come in the name of Jesus Christ based on that verse, but he's going to have names of blasphemy. Why? He's going to blaspheme Jesus Christ, but then he's going to call himself God. He's going to make himself God, he's going to try and give himself the title of God. Look at Revelation 13 verse six, and he opened his mouth and blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. Another verse that I think points to the fact that the Antichrist is going to blaspheme Jesus. He's going to blaspheme against the Holy One. He's going to tear down his name. That's why I said if someone is tearing down the name of Jesus Christ, we should run in the other direction. He's an Antichrist. He's denying Jesus Christ. He's an Antichrist. He doesn't have nothing to do with them. So my first point is that they just have no respect and we saw a lot of other verses that talked about the heat and the unsaved having no respect for God. Go to Revelation 16 though, look at a couple chapters forward. The second reason I've kind of talked about is the fact that the people are in a negative situation. They're experiencing some kind of affliction, some kind of suffering, something bad's happening to them and it's causing them to want to blaspheme. They don't. They think, well, if something bad's happening to me, it's God's fault. So I'm just going to blaspheme his name. I'm just going to speak irreverently of his name. We see this in the case of all day of life, you know, I mean you go to work and if your boss does something mean to you, maybe you'll talk bad about your boss or maybe in the house your, your parents come down on you or they're making you do some kind of chores and you get really mad so you speak against them. It's just the same way with all of us when something bad happens in our life or something bad happens in our circumstances, they're using his name as a cuss word because they're looking at him and they're being, you know, just something negative's happening, they're blaming God. They're accusing God. They're trying to say something negative about God. What did Job's wife say to him? She wanted him to, you know, curse God and die. Why? She wanted him to just blaspheme his name. He wanted to just be irreverent to him. But Job wouldn't do it because he knew that God wasn't going to do anything negative to Job in the long run. God was allowing what he was doing to just, you know, bless Job more, to try his patience or to, you know, perfect him more. Look at Revelation 16 verse 9, and men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God which had power over these plagues and they repented not to give him glory. So we see when God's pouring out his wrath in the unsaved. He's pouring out his wrath on the wicked, the ungodly, those that have taken the mark of the beast. They're not going to, oh God, I'm sorry now. No, because of the affliction, because of the suffering, they're just going to blaspheme his name more. They're going to keep cursing him and saying evil and speaking wicked things because they hate God and they're blaming God. But ultimately it's their fault because they didn't believe over Jesus Christ to receive the free gift. He did everything for them. They're the ones that sin and separated themselves from, you know, being with God. We've all separated ourselves from the love of Christ by our sin and we can have the free gift and we believe on him, but it's ultimately their fault why they're being scorched. Why do you do it? It says, I don't have it in my notes, but it says because of their fornication and their idolatry is because of their sin that God's even pouring out their wrath. So just be like a kid, you know, cursing his parents for spanking him or cursing his parents for disciplining him or punishing him. It's not the parents fault. Look, I don't want to spank my children if I didn't have to, but if they do something wrong, if I love them, I'll punish them. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ punishes us because he loves us and he's punishing them safe so that they'll get right. He wants them to repent, but because they're wicked or reprobate at this point, they're never going to. I'll read for you from Proverbs chapter 30, one other place, it says, lest I be full and deny thee and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God and think. There is a saying, he didn't want to be rich because if he was full, he might deny the Lord. Because we see rich people, they don't want to seek after God. They don't, they don't want to have anything to do with God. They think everything, they got all their needs satisfied. They don't need Jesus Christ. Oh, I've got all the money, I've got the nice car, I've got the nice house, why do I need Jesus? But we see even the flip side, if you're poor, a lot of times they'll steal and take the name of the Lord that I got, or take the name of my God in vain. I think what it's trying to say there is that whenever you're poor, you're tempted to steal. And not only that, because you're in bad circumstances, because you're not eating, then you're going to curse God. You're going to blame God. You're going to say evil and wicked things towards God. But we know if you work hard, you're going to be able to eat. The Bible makes it clear if you work hard, you'll be able to eat. Go to second Samuel chapter 12. So I kind of want to focus on my third point. We kind of laid down a foundation. I think it's real simple. We shouldn't blaspheme the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We shouldn't take the name of the Lord God in vain. We shouldn't use his name irreverently. We should be giving praise unto God. We see the unsaved, they do it because of a negative circumstance. We see it because they have no respect for God. Luckily, you know, I would think most people in church have respect for God to some degree, right? And maybe we can have control of our spirit, we can't be quick to anger, so even when negative circumstances happen, we can still praise God. But there's another way that God's name gets blasphemed. Second Samuel 12 verse 9 says, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with a sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with a sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor. And he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun, for thou didst it in secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die, howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. And Nathan departed unto his house, and the Lord struck the wife of Uriah the Hittite barren of David, and was very sick. So we see kind of a lengthy story, I wanted to read all that so we could get all the context. But David commits adultery with Bathsheba, and then he even kills her husband Uriah. But he does it in secret, the Bible makes that clear that nobody really knew what was going on. David had done it in a concealing way to where nobody really even knew what had happened. Because he immediately takes Bathsheba his wife, that was the reason why he killed Uriah. He wanted to kill Uriah quickly, and take Bathsheba unto his wife, so they wouldn't think that he committed adultery. They would think that she just got pregnant quickly, or something. We see a lot of people do this today. They commit fornication, and they get pregnant, and then they get married two days later, or a week later, just so it looks like they didn't do anything nefarious. They just got pregnant real quick or whatever. But we see that God knows what happened. And God's not going to hold him guiltless, even in this sin either. But we see that he says that he's given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. What does that mean? I think my third reason is that when we're hypocrites, when we go out and we just preach something and then we just do the same sin, we're just full of hypocrisy, we don't do what we say, we're not really Christian in our actions, just by our words, it gives the unsaved, it gives the unheathen even more reason to blaspheme. Even more reason to have no respect for God. When they see Christians that are actually following the Bible, that don't do anything the Bible says, that are just full of hypocrisy and liars and living wicked lives, they say, I don't have any respect for that God, I don't have any respect for that Lord, these people aren't doing right things, they're not righteous, they're not better than we are, and they look down on the Lord Jesus Christ because of our actions, because of how we are. All these liberal non-denom churches, all they do is cause blasphemy of the Lord Jesus Christ. All these weak churches, all these false teachers, all these Catholic priests that are constantly molesting children and are wicked to the core, it just causes people to blaspheme Jesus and God and the Bible. We see that as Christians, it's our responsibility to not just say the words of God, to not just give lip service, but actually do the works, to actually fulfill the Bible, to live a clean and holy life, to be righteous, to live above approach, why? So that the name of God is not blasphemed. God can be blasphemed because of our actions, because of what we do, because of how we behave, because we don't follow the commandments, because we don't go out and preach the gospel. There was this wicked talk show host, Penn Jillette, Penn and Teller I think, is that the name of his show? He said in an interview, he said, I have absolute and no respect for any Christian that never comes up and tells me how to get saved. He said, after a show one time, this old man came up to me, he says, I know you're an atheist, but he handed him a tract and tried to give him the gospel and he said, I have great respect for that guy because if he literally believes that I'm going to die and go to hell, I mean, how much does he have to hate me to not tell me? How much does he have to hate me to not actually practice what he preaches, to actually practice what he believes? But we see so many Christians today, they'll say, yeah, everybody that doesn't believe in Christ is going to burn in hell for all of eternity. Well how many people have you told? None. I mean, it just gives cause to Jesus Christ to be blasphemed. What if every single Christian, and listen to me now, what if every single Christian in America was like the people of faith were in a Baptist church, where they were living a separated, holy life, where they're going out and preaching the gospel, do you think God's name would be blasphemed more or less? It's actually a lot less, not because we're so great, I'm not trying to live this up, but people actually do what they preach, they actually follow the Bible, that are living a separated life, that are actually doing the worst, they have more respect for that person than the person that goes to these liberal non-to-non churches that act like the world, look like the world, and they say, you're not better than we are. I mean, you do all the same things we do, y'all get divorced the same, y'all do all the same kind of filth, y'all are into all the same movies and TV shows, y'all don't follow what the Bible says, y'all don't love people, y'all are going preaching the gospel, you are doing the commandments of God, and it causes blasphemy under the Lord Jesus Christ. When they see the great man of David, this man, he's a murderer and an adulterer, they're like, I don't want to serve that God, your main leader, the guy at the top leading the forward, leading the charge as an adulterer and a murderer, it gives the enemy so much more room to blast him against Christ, to blast him against the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see that, go to James chapter three, just thought of this, the Bible makes it clear that if we're given much, there's much of us to be required. Go to James chapter three, look at verse one. The Bible says, my brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation, for in many things we offend all, if any man offend not in the word, the same as a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. So he's saying, look, you shouldn't be many masters because you're going to come under greater condemnation. Why? Because the guy that's leading the charge, the guy that's, you know, trying to be a pastor, trying to be this great leader, this great evangelist, when he slips and falls, there's a great catastrophe. I mean, there's just so much more that hurts the Lord Jesus Christ, that brings blasphemy into his name, that has the enemies of God to say, we won the victory. You know, look at this guy, he's not any better than us. He's an adulterer, he's a murderer, he's just being a hypocrite. And when we go and we're a hypocrite in what we say and what we do, when we're blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ, if somebody knows we're a Christian, we blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ, that just makes the unsaved, you know, think, well, I can definitely do it. I mean, this guy's just a hypocrite, he's just a liar. I have no respect for the Lord Jesus Christ if this guy's going to do that. So we should be so much more careful as ourselves. Go to Romans chapter two, let's go to Romans chapter two, I'll read for you a few places. The heathen lose respect for God when they don't see his power, when they don't see his might, when they don't see his holiness. And they just look like a bunch of hypocrites, they're just a bunch of blathers. You know, the unsaved don't think the charismatics are wise either. You know, I know we look at them with a lot of disdain, so does the ungodly, and they blaspheme Christ because these people rolling in the aisles and barking like dogs and looking like a bunch of idiots. No, if God's people are holy and righteous and really wise, people go and seek them out. Why didn't everybody seek out Solomon? It's because he was wise, because he was abiding by the Bible because they were righteous, because they were a righteous nation. That was the whole point of Jerusalem, the whole point of Jerusalem and Israel was for them to be more righteous than all the other nations. For them to look at that nation and say, look how righteous these people are. Look how holy these people are. I want to serve that God. I want to serve the God where the people are like that. I'll read for you in Deuteronomy chapter 4. I'm going to skip a couple of verses. It says, Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land, whether you go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous, as this law which is set before you this day? We see, why did God give them the law? Why is God making them chosen people? So that they could show when somebody gives their whole heart to God, when they're following all of his commandments, how great it is, and they can look at that righteousness and they can give more glory and more praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's all pointing to Jesus Christ. It's all pointing to his glory. It's his laws that were perfect. The Bible says that the law of the Lord is perfect at converting the soul. And we see when they see the law and they see how righteous it makes, it draws people towards it. But when people are hypocrites, when they preach the law, but they don't actually do it, it draws people away, causing them to blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what, even if you do it in secret, God knows. God said, hey, what you did in secret is allowed the enemies to blaspheme God. Go to Romans chapter two, we'll look at this last passage, look at verse 17, Behold, thou art called a Jew and restless in the law and makest thy boast of God and knows his will and proves the things that are more excellent being instructed of the law and are confident that thy and thyself are a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness and instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which has the form of knowledge and of the truth and the law. Thou, therefore, which teaches another, teaches not thyself, thou that preacheth a man should not steal. Does thou steal? Thou that sayeth a man should not commit adultery, does thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, does thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonors thou God, for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you. He's saying, look, when you're a hypocrite, when you go and you just commit all the same sins that you're preaching against, it's causing the name of God to be blasphemed through you because of your actions. You're actually encouraging the unsaved to blaspheme because you're being a hypocrite, because you're not following the commandments like God gave us. Now obviously none of us is perfect, none of us is going to be without sin, but when we go and commit grievous sin, when we're not doing what we preach, it makes it where God's name gets blasphemed, where his name is trodden underfoot and we see the Jews, they thought they were really special. They thought they were really great because they had, they had given more knowledge. God had committed the oracles of God, he committed the law to the Jews. You know, people at Faith Word Baptist Church, they had a lot given unto them, a lot of knowledge, a lot of good teaching, but I think unfortunately there's a dearth in the land a little bit. There's a dearth for the godly man. If you even look at Faith Word Baptist Church, the majority of people that are there have not been soul winning for 10 years, for 15 years, for 20 years. It's not hard to have that. I mean you have a bunch of 40 and 50 and 60 year olds that have been doing it their whole life, you would have a lot of people like that, right? You'd have a lot of godly men that have known the Bible for decades that have a lot of biblical knowledge, but we see that there was kind of a dearth in the land and so we have a lot of younger Christians, a lot of younger people that are learning the Bible and growing and I think sometimes there's this tendency where somebody can kind of start elevating and growing real quickly and they're a lot higher than everybody else. But actually they haven't matured very much in the grand scheme of things. Pastor Anderson is so much higher, he's so much at a further level that we can't really understand there's so much dearth of a separation that it allows people to get really prideful. It allows people to get really arrogant. When they really haven't matured well enough, they haven't learned the Bible well enough, they haven't grown in the Lord long enough, they haven't been soul winning for decades, they haven't been reading the Bible for decades, they haven't been growing in the Lord and it gives them a self arrogance. Now obviously it's not a perfect analogy because the Jews weren't even saved, right? But we see that even Christians can sometimes get this attitude and I think this was the same attitude of the Jews. They weren't going to be instructed, they were going to instruct others. They weren't going to learn, they were going to teach others because they thought they had arrived. They thought they had got there. And we as Christians, I don't think should ever have this attitude. It doesn't matter where you're at, where you're at in the scale, how long you've been saved, how long you've been soul winning, how long you've been preaching the Bible, we should always have the attitude and the humility for someone to show us something out of the Bible, to be corrected, to be re-instructed, to relearn. And we see when we get so arrogant and prideful, sometimes it'll cause us to make an error, cause us to make a big misstep, and then guess what happens? The name of God is blasting through our ignorance, is blasting through our pride, is blasting through us not following the commandments of being humble and being re-instructed and being willing to learn. I know even in my life there was times where I really wasn't open to learning something new. So I thought that I had studied the Preacher of Rapture really well. When I was going to church I had always heard the Preacher of Rapture and always been taught it and I had studied all the other views in my mind. I thought I knew this subject, I had studied for what hours, I had read all these articles, I had studied Preterism, I had studied Post-Trib, I had studied Mid-Trib, I had studied Pre-Trib. And I wouldn't be real dogmatic, I'd say, well I believe it's a Preacher of Rapture from an argument of silence. Which again, horrible, never based a doctrine on argument of silence, the fact that I said, well it's not Preterism, it's not Mid-Trib, it's not Post-Trib, I guess it's Preacher by default. But I can't show you a clear verse that teaches that from the Bible. No way to ever base your doctrine. But I had studied it so much that I got to this point where I wasn't willing to be instructed on it. I wasn't willing to hear anybody else's opinion. I wasn't willing to let somebody show me from the Bible clearly what it said. And so when I started listening to Pastor Anderson for the first time, he had this video constantly popping up after the Tribulation, after the Tribulation. And I was like, I'm not going to watch it, I'm not going to watch it, I don't want to hear it, I've already studied it, I already know it, I'm not going to watch it. And then later, me and my wife, we were doing Bible reading a lot together, and she texted me. And she said, what does Mark 13 mean? So I read Mark 13, and I was like, that says it's after the Tribulation. And so I go back to 1 Thessalonians 4, and then I start reading, and I was like, wow, I guess the Bible's saying that it's after the Tribulation. And then that movie popped in my mind. I mean, it's clear it's after the Tribulation, so I went and watched it. And then I realized how foolish and ignorant and unlearned I really was. But I got in this attitude, oh, I've got it, oh, I understand, oh, I know, that's what the Pharisees are like, that's what the Sadducees are like, they have this air about them, they're not going to be instructed by Jesus Christ, they weren't willing and open to hear the Word preached unto them, they got in this attitude. And I think as Christians, as people in this church have been given a lot that maybe have more wisdom than other people, we should never get this attitude. We should always be humble and willing and allowing somebody to show us something out of the Bible, to be instructed from the God's Word. We should never get an air about ourselves and think, well, I've been so willing for a few years, let me tell you how to do it. We should always be willing to receive correction, be able to receive rebuke, because why? We don't want to have some just blind spot, just have something really obvious, but nobody wants to approach us because they're like, you can't talk to that guy, he's already figured it out, he's not going to be willing to listen to you, he doesn't want to hear what you have to say. We should be the type of people that welcome correction, that welcome instruction, that well, hey, what can I do better? How can I be a better preacher? How can I be a better soul winner? How can I do this better? We should always be willing to be better, that way we don't get this cocky attitude and think more highly of ourselves than we have to think, and then we end up stumbling really hard, and then it causes the enemies to be able to blaspheme through us, blaspheme through our ignorance, blaspheme through our sin, blaspheme through our hypocrisy, I mean, I think it would be pretty terrible if I had never changed my mind and I get up and I start preaching and preach a sermon to Vapour Baptist Church, and everybody's going to be mocking me and laughing at me, and they're going to be like, you're letting this guy get up and preach? I mean, what if I never changed my mind on that issue? I mean, it's going to be great blasphemy on the Lord Jesus Christ. We should always have a humble attitude and a willingness to learn anything out of the Bible. Go to Philippians chapter three, Philippians chapter two, we'll close there. Jesus Christ said unto Nicodemus, he said, aren't thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things? Jesus Christ was telling, you know, the master of Israel, just salvation, the most simple doctrine of the Bible, one of the most basic foundations. He says, you're a master of Israel, you don't know these things. We should always be willing to be humbled and be corrected and not think more highly of ourselves. And we need to know the basics. You can ask a stupid question. We should realize, hey, I need to be more grounded and not get, you know, arrogantly puffed up and let myself mature fully before I started thinking too highly of myself because the master of Israel should definitely know salvation. He should definitely understand that. Philippians chapter three, look at verse eight, yea doubtless I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may win Christ. But Paul had spent his whole life studying, studying the Bible, studying the scriptures, devoted his whole life, but at one point he had to realize, you know what? It's all done and I got to throw it away. You know, I spent a lot of my life, you know, studying the word and trying to grow in church and I was a Sunday school leader and I did all these things. But at one point I had to realize, look, I've been wrong pretty much my whole life. I've been, I had a zeal of God, but it wasn't according to knowledge. I'm going to throw all those things away. I need to be humble enough to realize it's possible I've been doing a lot of things wrong. It's possible I thought something wrong. It's possible I've been doing something wrong and be humble enough to just make a course correction and start from the beginning if we had to. I mean, in the worst case scenario, I had to just start back in the beginning. That's better than continuing on the wrong path. That's better than continuing on a path of pride and arrogance because whenever you fall, it's going to be a great blasphemy under the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to have a humble heart when it comes to the Bible versions. You know, some people, they don't want to change in this issue because they don't mean they were wrong their whole life. People don't want to change churches because that means maybe they were wrong their whole life. People don't want to admit that they weren't saved their whole life. They'd rather go to hell than believe that they were unsaved their whole life. I mean, I've seen it at the door. You're talking to the person. You're pleading with them to get saved. I know I'm already saved, but they just won't change their mind about the gospel. I have to believe what I've always believed is true. I can't believe what you're telling me. I can't believe it's that simple. I can't believe that's easy. All the work I've been doing, I've been doing to get to heaven. Don't tell me it's not enough. They want to hang on to that and then they're going to go all the way to hell. We need to always do the right things and be humble and be realistic about where we're at and not think too highly of ourselves so that the name of God is not blasphemed. Blasphemed through us. Maybe you don't take the name of the Lord in vain anymore. That's great. But guess what? Don't be a hypocrite too because the name of God can be blasphemed through that as well. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Father for your word. Thank you for your glorious and precious name. I pray that we'd always give reverence and respect that our hearts would have great admiration towards your name. Thank you for all that you've blessed us with. I pray that you'd also lead us not into temptation and that we could continue to be humble and to be humble servants and follow your word faithfully so that your name would not be blasphemed through our false actions, through our slip ups, through anything that we've done in error. That we could continue to live a holy and righteous life and see the importance of that so that your name could be given the most respect, the most glory, the most honor. We just thank you for this church and all that you give us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.