Description
FIRST & 10 SERMON SERIES
BEWARE WHEN YOU SWEAR
JANUARY 17, 1999
ED YOUNG
While growing up, I lived down the street from my orthodontist, Rupert Cuney. That’s a great name, isn’t it? Rupert Cuney. It was a real convenient deal because when I would have an orthodontist appointment, Dr. Cuney would drive by my house, pick me up and cart me to his office. My mother would pick me up after the appointment and take me to school.
I loved Dr. Cuney because he was an outdoorsman. This man traveled around the world hunting and fishing. There are a couple of things you need to know about him. First of all, he tried to act very spiritual and holy around my family because my father was a pastor of a local church. I could tell even as a sixth grader that he tried to put on this front of being a great Christian. There is something else you need to know. Dr. Cuney had the most unique voice I have ever heard in my entire life. He grew up in the Deep South and while he was talking, he would pause for long periods of time. It was strange. Now remember those two things as I tell you what happened. It seems like yesterday that I was driving in Dr. Cuney’s suburban to his office. He had five or six rod and reels in the back.
I looked at him and said, “Dr. Cuney, you have fished all over the world. Have you ever been hooked before?” No response. Talking to him you would wonder, did he not hear what I said? “Dr. Cuney, have you ever been hooked before?” Finally he said, “A couple of months ago, I went fishing with a good friend of mine. He is a doctor, Dr. Alfred Kinko. Dr. Kinko and I were fishing out there, you know what I am talking about, that lake……Murray.” I began to wonder whether we were going to hear the story or not. “We were in a school of white bass and we were catching those bass like anything. Dr. Kinko had a long fly rod made into a spinning rod. He got excited catching these bass. I told him to watch out. And, Ed, he reared back with that fly rod and that damn…..that dang, that dang, dang, dang hook caught me behind the dang ear. Dang, de dang, de dang, dang.” I will never, ever forget that encounter with my orthodontist, Dr. Rupert Cuney.
Today I am talking about the commandment that Dr. Cuney violated and record numbers of us are breaking. Beware when you swear. Beware when you swear. “Pardon my French.” “Excuse me.” “It just slipped out.” It seems as though we are bombarded by bad language, doesn’t it? Everywhere we turn there are expletives and cussing and profanity or whatever you want to call it. It appears that our culture is on a perpetual swearathon.
Well, God’s word comes along and it tells us to beware when we swear. I am in a series on the Ten Commandments. During this series we have been throwing three questions at each directive, and today is no different. We are going to look at Exodus 20:7 and ask three questions about this commandment. The first question is what is the meaning? What was God driving at when He had the prince of Egypt, Moses, record these words? Then we are going to look at the mentality. What was going through God’s mind? What kink of cosmic concerns did He have when He came up with this stuff? And finally, we are going to look at the implications. How can we apply this profanity stuff, this swearing stuff, to our lives in 1999?
What is the meaning? Well, let’s read the commandment. Exodus 20:7. “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.” In other words, don’t disrespect the name of God by denouncing and pronouncing it in a frivolous or flippant manner. God forbids us from using His name in a pedestrian or casual fashion. Why? Because names are mediums of communication. And God’s name is different from every other name. He is distinct from man. God is sovereign, He is transcendent, He is holy, He is supernatural. We aren’t. And He tells us over and over again to hold His name in high esteem. Yet a lot of us turn our backs and we thumb our noses at God and we say what we want to say without really realizing the true implication and how the words we use play out in our lives and those with whom we rub shoulders.
The obvious way that we break this commandment is by saying words. It is by taking God’s name in vain. I want to highlight for you several types of swearers, several different categories of profanity users that I believe are represented here and throughout our world today.
Now, remember the word vain refers to emptying. It refers to making something irrelevant, so when we profane the name of God or use coarse or profane language we are emptying the name of God and making it irrelevant. Having said that, let’s look at the first type of swearer, that is someone who I call the clueless swearer.
Three months ago, I was standing in the lobby shaking hands after the 10 AM service. A man ran up to me and said, “Pastor, I want to tell you, man, that was a hell of a sermon.” I still wonder what he was talking about. This man was clueless. Speaking of being clueless, late Friday evening I walked out into the night air to feed our gargantuan dogs. After feeding the animals, I walked back through the garage and I pushed the button to close the garage door. I am not very mechanical but even I could tell when I pushed the button that something was really, really wrong. The entire garage door stopped and began to jerk and make weird noises. So I decided to immediately quit pushing the button.
I walked over to inspect the door and could tell that it was off the track. I reached up to try to put the door back on track but I couldn’t do it. The phone began to ring and I ran into the kitchen to answer it. I was talking on the phone when I heard Lisa trying to push the button to close the garage door. “Honey, no, don’t push the garage door, it’s broken…” And right when I said broken, I heard this earthquake-type sound. I threw the phone down, ran into the garage and saw our garage door hanging by two little cables, swaying over our cars. Ehhhh. Ehhhh. We didn’t breathe.
Lisa, being a quick thinker, called an emergency garage door repairperson who showed up at our house at 10 o’clock and charged us an arm and a leg to fix the garage door. As I was standing out there watching him work and wondering how he was going to do this, he asked God to damn our garage door to hell! In other words, he was a clueless swearer. He had no idea what he was saying.
As I said earlier, the name of God as noted in Philippians 2, is above every name. This text says that Jesus Christ has a name that is so holy, that is so hallowed, that words cannot really describe it. Back in Old Testament times, a devout Jew wouldn’t even pronounce the name of God. Check this out. If a Jew happened to be reading scripture and came to the name of God, he would omit it, skip over it, or use some kind of symbol. If he did say a word, he would say the word Adoni. The name of God was pronounced, though, once a year by the holiest man in the nation, the high priest, on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, in the holy of holies in the temple. That is how much the Jewish culture prioritized the name of God.
In Luke 11 we read that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. They wanted to be shown a model, an outline of the way they should talk and communicate with God. Jesus said, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Don’t disrespect the name God by denouncing and pronouncing it in a frivolous or flippant manner. Jesus was saying, don’t even go there. Hold it high because the name of God communicates the essence and the totality of God’s being.
In Leviticus 24, two guys got in a fistfight. One must have taken a Mike Tyson type of left hook to the jaw. The scripture reveals that this person, after getting knocked in the head, took the name of God in vain. He used it in a frivolous and profane manner. He made it irrelevant. He emptied it of content. And when people heard him, they dragged him before the religious leaders, including Moses, and he was put to death. God does not play around with people who profane His name.
So what are we to do? Most people who use these words are clueless. I understand that and so do you. What are you to do if you say, “I am a clueless swearer. I am in this category. What shall I do?” If you are clueless, you need to be clued in. You need to realize the implication of what you are saying.
When you say, God damn, you are asking God to do something that He does not do. God does not damn any person to hell. We choose hell. We damn ourselves to hell when we walk over and trample over the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. So it is the creature telling the creator what to do. It is one of us saying, “OK, God, I will just go ahead and do what I need to do because I will be the little sovereign god over this universe called me. I will say what I want to say. I will do what I want to do. I will damn this and damn that.” Even if you say the word damn, you are throwing around a word that matters to God. You are making light of eternal separation. If you say hell in a flippant manner, you are making fun of eternal punishment and judgment and God does not play around with those words. God does not play around with the results of eternity.
Yet some say, “oh, my God” or “God Almighty” or “Jesus Christ” or “Jeez”. When you go through that, you are pointing at God. You, in a round about way, are blaming God for your problem, God for your pain, God for your predicament. You are making your Savior, if you know Him, the scapegoat. And I have got to tell you something. I wonder if you really know the Lord if you profane His name. I have got to wonder, do you really know Him personally if you continually profane His name?
The first category is the clueless swearer. There is another category represented here and in our culture today. It is the wheels off swearer. The wheels off swearer is someone who sometimes has wheels on. Sometimes they are controlled. But now and then, when someone pulls in front of them on them on the freeway, or they have to wait too long in the church parking lot, or they strike out in the softball game, or hit their thumb with the hammer, the wheels are off. I mean the wheels are off and they come bounding down the freeway of life. And they say, “Well, I just grew up that way. I have got to say those words to make my point. It raises my testosterone level. It really makes feel big. I just can’t control myself.” Isn’t it ironic, isn’t it interesting, that the people who know God the least often use His name the most! In James 3:9-10 the brother of Christ writes these words. “With the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father and with it we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth comes praise…” That’s wheels on. “…and cursing…” That’s wheels off. “…My brothers, this should not be.” The tongue is petit but it is powerful.
People never say, “Oh Buddha.” They never say, “Mohammed damn.” Why? Because Buddha and Mohammed and L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith, they are not the true and one and only God. People curse, profane and make irrelevant the one true God’s name and use it in a flippant and frivolous manner. Why? Because down deep, I believe, every single person knows the truth.
If you are a person who is kind of a wheels off swearer, you need to have the wheels put back on. You need to take the words in Romans 12:2 and apply them to your life. This text says that we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We have got to be transformed. This word transformed means to go through a metamorphosis. If we go through a metamorphosis in our minds, which is a work only the Holy Spirit can do, and change the way we think, then we can change the way we speak. So, yes, if you are a wheels off person, the wheels can come back on today and you can take captive every single word you say and make it a praise offering to God as opposed to using His name in a flippant and frivolous manner. So be transformed.
You know if a lot of us got serious about the third commandment, this next week we would go through long periods of silence in our conversations. It would probably improve our listening skills. I often think about stand-up comics like Dennis Miller and Chris Rock and what would happen if they didn’t use profanity. Their acts wouldn’t last any time at all. Could you be a person with wheels off?
You know, being a pastor, I have a unique perspective on profanity. Due to my athletic background, I have been around some of the most spectacular swearers you have ever seen. Talk about cussing in a creative manner, I have been there, done that, heard it, thought about it, had it yelled at me. It is amazing what people can do. And granted, most people are clueless and need to be clued in, or wheels off and need the wheels back on. But I will never forget what happened several years ago.
I was playing basketball with some guys and during the game these guys were throwing out the F word, the GD phrase, I mean, you name it, they were saying it. After the game, they walked up to me and asked my name. They introduced themselves to me. They asked what I did for a living. I love to watch people at this point, when they have just violated the third commandment time and time again. I love to watch their reaction. It is a kind of pastoral humor. I told them I was a pastor in a local church, the Fellowship Church. These guys looked like they had been electrocuted, you know. The usual response is first, that I am lying, that I am not a pastor. Then they tell me that I don’t look like a pastor. Then, thirdly, after they have pushed their rewind button and all the swear words became apparent, they say that they are sorry. I tell them not to apologize to me, but to Thee. Apologize to Him. What was funny was that we played three more intense games and they never said one more profane word. It was wheels off and then suddenly it was wheels on.
A lot of us are bilingual, aren’t we? The drama kind of hit on this. Around certain people, the words just come out. But then around church, we change, man. We are bilingual. It needs to be wheels on and the wheels need to stay on and we need the transformation process.
There is another type of swearer that I want to touch on. It is the arrogant person. This is the person who just shakes his puny little vocabulary in the face of God and this person just says, “God, forget you, I will say what I want to say, thank you.” I ask you, how can a person who knows Christ, how can a person who has been forgiven and cleansed, how can a person who has had his home secured in heaven, how can that person trash the name of God? How? How can they talk about Jesus, the one who died a torturous death, a sin-sacrificing death, and rose again, how can they mess around with His name? I tell you, I don’t believe they are Christ followers if they regularly and habitually profane His name, I don’t think they know Him. I you know Him, you are going to protect His name. You are not going to joke about His name. You are going to hold His name close. You are going to love His name. You are going to honor His name because it is the label that has changed you, that saved you, that has given you eternity and a purpose and a clear conscience and life beyond any other life that the world offers. You are going to really honor the name of God.
If someone saved you from drowning, dove into the icy water to rescue you, would your trash his or her name? Would you curse their name? Would you use their name in a flippant or frivolous manner? Would you? I wouldn’t. There is no way I would do that.
Matthew 15:18. Jesus said, “But the things that come out of the mouth…” Our speech is a gift from God. Yet Exodus 4:11 tells us that we have gutted this gift when we swear. “…come from the heart and these make a man unclean.” If you are here this morning and you are an arrogant type swearer, I challenge you to humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. I challenge you to come to terms with the fact that you cannot redo and gloss over all the sins and mistakes of the past, of what you are involved in now and will be in your future. You can’t do it. But the wonderful words that I am going to share with you today are that Christ has done the work. He has paid the price. He has taken the initiative. He takes care of all of your sins, all of your moral foul-ups. And if you come clean on this deal, if you admit your arrogance before God and turn to Him and bow the knee to Him and humble yourself before Him and ask Him to come into your life, He will change you and remake you and even reword your arrogant and profane vocabulary. The Lord Jesus can do that.
The obvious way to look at this commandment is through words, the words that come across our lips. But there is another way we can break the third commandment. A few of you are saying, “I have never said a swear word in my life. This is not me. Oh, boy, I can kind of get out of this one. I am good. I have never said one bad word in my life.” But hold it. I guarantee you, you have still violated the third commandment. And maybe you are still violating it. Because not only do we profane the name of God with our words, we can also profane the name of God with our lifestyle. Our lifestyle. I am talking to Christ followers now. If you are a seeker, just listen, I am only talking to those who are Christian. If I say one thing, if I go by the label of Christian, hey, I have been saved and redeemed and justified and sanctified, connected to this church or that church, and do something contrary to that, you have profaned the name of God. You have made it irrelevant. You have emptied it of any content.
I want to ask you a direct question. Is there any place you go, is there any word you say, is there anything you do that does not square with the label of Christ? Because if any of those hit you, if any of those kind of send up some flags and warning lights, then you are in violation of the third commandment. In a real way, we, as Christ followers, are an advertisement of the grace and mercy of God. And also, we are the only Jesus a lot of people will ever see in our sphere of influence. So that is a heavy burden. That is a huge responsibility. Talk about accountability. Wow. That is accountability that is cosmic. How are you doing? It is the old walk and talk thing. And throughout the Bible, the Old Testament and the New, you will hear the words, if you love God, you will keep the commandments. If you love God, you will keep the commitments. If you love God, you will walk in the way He wants you to walk. Why? Because God is holy and he wants us to live holy lifestyles as an act of worship to Him, as an act of influence for Him. People would often rather see a sermon than hear one any day.
So what are some practical steps we can take about the third commandment? Number one. Talk about this stuff. Talk about this stuff to others. For example, if you are around a spectacular swearer, I mean a creative cusser, someone at work who says GD this, F this, H this, D this, whatever, talk to them about it. Maybe it could be a friend, a parent. I want you to go home, grab them up by the shirt and …. No, don’t do that. Some are going, yeah. No, talk to them about it. When they are not all out of control, when the wheels aren’t off, just sit down and say you want to explain to them what they are saying. Most people have no idea of the power of words and what is behind them. Talk to your children about it. Talk about this commandment.
There is no way, though, you can live your life with earmuffs on. You can’t go through life saying that you can never hear another swear word ever. You are going to hear them. So am I. Sometimes even after sermons. Yet we have got to talk about it. Parents, think about what comes across the airwaves in your home. Are you talking to your children about it or are you letting them sit down again to watch a 110 minute movie where they constantly profane the name of God and use His name in a frivolous and flippant manner. Are you doing that? Don’t numb out to this stuff. Talk to them about it. And when you are around your children and someone says a swear word, explain what it means.
Number two. Constantly critique what comes across your lips and your lifestyle. Constantly look at it and think about your word choice, what you are saying, what you are using to describe a situation or a person. Critique what comes across your lips and critique your lifestyle. Ask yourself. Am I a true reflection of the church? Am I a true advertisement of the love and grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ? Am I? Do I honor the name of God? Do I obey the third commandment?
That is why I challenge you again to write out your prayers. When you write those prayers out, you can look back and see if you reverenced God’s name or not.
Beware when you swear. Beware when you swear. If you are clueless, get clued in. If your wheels are off, put the wheels back on. If you are arrogant, humble yourself and live the life and honor the name of God.