by David Brenneman
“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” Mark 3:28-30.
Definition of blaspheme: to speak in a way that shows irreverence for God. To swear, to curse. Take God's name in vain.
"The word vain (as it's rendered in the ESV) can mean “empty,” “nothing,” “worthless,” or “to no good purpose.” We are forbidden, therefore, from taking the name of God (or taking up the name or bearing the name, as the phrase could be translated) in a manner that is wicked, worthless, or for wrong purposes." - www.crossway.org.
Also: the 3rd Commandment: Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord in vain.
There will be no "I didn't mean it that way!" as an excuse before Jesus.
More so in days gone by, whenever a person's family name was slandered, it was cause for offense and usually meant someone was going to pay.
Satan's schemes include dilution of the importance of anything to do with everything that God holds as truth.
There's zero excuse for taking the Lord’s name in vain. None. No act of nature, no act of animal or beast, no act or words of human beings is grounds for such a thing.
Scripture says that we'll give an account of every careless word that we have spoken. Go further, it's going to cover everything we thought and didn't say out loud.
The last and final thing would be rejecting the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Treating as worthless the all important work of the Spirit of God in every single person who's ever lived.
You have the Spirit working in your life. Everyone does because as Jesus said that He came to seek and save the lost. Which is everyone. All who would live between His resurrection until at the last breath of humanity at the final battle mentioned in Revelation. Even people like Stalin, Alexander the Great and Hitler.
Jesus came to save people. The worst possible offense is to treat His desire to save as worthless.
To use what's Holy, as in His Name, as a curse word...this is blaspheme.
Jesus spoke of His Story before it became History. The opening drive, the kickoff, the first shot to the net in declaring to His Disciples what was coming that He would obey His Father and do.
"As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.” Matthew 20:17-19. He called it and pulled it off as our Pastor often says.
Do you have any respect for what's Holy unto God?
Do you off-handedly use His Name in less than appropriate times and in inappropriate ways?
Every single time this is sin.
There's no excuse.
There's no exceptions permitted.
Centuries ago a single utterance of taking the Lord’s Name in vain was grounds for being stoned to death.
Sadly as the centuries have passed fewer and fewer people have placed the Word of God as important to truly living a life acceptable to God.
What's important to Jesus isn't important to most of the world.
Believers often give Christianity a bad name because of their lack of integrity in living a life striving for holiness. It's not just found in the Old Testament of being Holy. It's there in the New Testament as well. Be Holy as He is Holy.
Another way to view this is to realize that your careless words are never gone from the account you will give before Jesus. Forgiven yes, but they will be a part of what you present to Jesus. They are part of who you are. Just as all the good things are about you.
Choose your words. An old way of saying this is to measure your words. To measure in carpentry you are advised to measure twice cut once. Be sure before you execute the use of the cutting tool.
How do you measure your words?
How important is the holiness of God to you?
How are you treating the Name of Jesus? The Name of God the Father? The Name of God the Spirit?
Movies of the decades have heavily relied on swearing to make money. It's just how Satan's being desensitizing people to the power of the Word of God. Television censors have relented in decades past to permit most swearing on prime time viewing. Again to desensitize. To make it so natural that people just accept it as normal. There's nothing natural about trashing the Name of Jesus.
If you have...it's time to come clean and confess. It's time to put an end to it from your vocabulary.
An unbeliever makes it worse on themselves and a Believer does themselves no favors by allowing it to be a part of their lives.
How can a Believer treat God's Name in such a way and yet rely on that same Name to save them?
Incredulous but it's happening.
How much of your life do you treat as Holy? How much of it is done as unto the Lord? How often have you stopped to think that you are to grow into a representation of Jesus to a lost world? You who are saved in Christ Jesus are to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
Words, once spoken, thoughts once pondered, cannot be taken back.
As written many times in the Bible...consider your ways!
All NASB 1995 and NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission. (C) Lockman Foundation.
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