Deuteronomy 5:11 Bible Study | Episode 855

January 17, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 5:11  Bible Study | Episode #855

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God will open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name. Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter five, going through the Ten Commandments. It's. It's in some people's Bibles. As you read through it, the heading says a review of the Ten Commandments, because remember, we, we already saw where God presented the Ten Commandments to his people through Moses in, in Exodus, chapter 20. And so as we're, as we're looking into these 10 commandments, this is the review and it's review two, the next generation. And so I think it's good to, in this rendition, to go into the deep dive, because it is a deep dive into the Ten Commandments in the sense of when we studied it before we went over it, in its broad understanding, in its broad effect throughout Scripture today. I want to kind of deal with the. Each commandment on its own and kind of talk about some of the things that you get from some of them are very straightforward. But this one, of all the commandments in Scripture, several of them are. Some of, several of the Ten Commandments in here have some really neat aspects to them, especially the one before that deals with generational issues. This one, probably, if you read it and just read it in its actual context, as far as the, the words that it says is probably the murkiest, and when I say the murkiest, the one that's most difficult to understand and likely that has to do with the Hebrew, but it also has to do with the way we've been taught to deal with this. The way we've been taught that this means. And, and the way it's been taught and our society and our Christian culture teaches it is not necessarily wrong. It's not wrong at all. It's just not. It's just. I guess the best way to describe it is superficial. It's the superficial way to deal with this. And I think if you'll spend. If we spend a little time studying through these things, we'll see that. That this is. That there's a lot more to this and maybe a greater importance to it that we ought to take from it. Because God, remember, He's given us this commandment not just for superficial things in our lives, but for depth, for life change, for us to know his character, nature. In fact, the Ten Commandments reveal aspects, important aspects of his character and nature. And that's why we went through it in its broad sense when we went through it in Exodus, because the broad change in nature that God wants us to have is to understand his love and understand his character. And this commandment actually deals with that. This commandment deals with God's character in nature. And you go, well, what is it? Well, let me read it to you and kind of read it to you with Hebrews so that you can begin to think about it in its. In its Hebrew context. He says, thou shalt not. That's naysay, low take and shout. Thou shalt take is really one word there. And then you would add not. But in the English language, we put not in the middle of the two. And so we should say, thou shalt not take the name, the shelter, and that literally. The word name here speaks more to the character and the nature of a person. In fact, it speaks to who the person is. It gives us a context of his reputation, his fame, his glory, the. The knowledge and understanding of the person, how the person. How the person is understood to be in the world. And so when we use that word, it's not as much literally a name. And the way I know that's actually true is that it's using the reputation and the fame of God, the. The understandings of God. When I say reputation, how we know who God is is his character. How we know that character. The way I know that is because the next two verses, the next two words are two names of God. So when I say names, I mean names God has given us to call him. And those are. Let's read it again in its context. Thou shalt not, or thou. Thou shalt not take, or thou shalt take not the name, the reputation, glory of the Lord thy God. Now, those two words, the Lord thy God, are two names of God, Jehovah and Elohim. Jehovah is Lord and Elohim is the common Old Testament name for God, along with Adonai. So you actually have three names that would be used regularly throughout the Old Testament for God. Jehovah Elohim, Adonai, and then the most holy of his names. And remember, that doesn't mean it's the main name. It doesn't mean it's the most important name. It just speaks to his holiness. And that's Yahweh. And so you got Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, and Yahweh. And we know that those are the names of God, many of the names of God. And then Jehovah has all kinds of subparts, Jehovah, Rapha, Jehovah, Jireh, which means he's the Lord of this, the Lord of that, the Lord of these things, the Lord of these actions. He's the Lord of a lot of things. So Jehovah even has sub parts to its name to his name. And so when I read this, and I see says you should not take the name of the Lord. And then he gives me the names, I know that there's more to it than the actual names. There's more to it than the actual names. It has to be his character, nature, or especially. Why does he give us so many names? Because one human word cannot describe the character and the nature of God. One human word, there's no way for one human word to describe God. God is too big for that. That's too much for it. In fact, our understanding of God only grows more and more as we go through the millennia. We, we know that God is, is greater than we even understood him to be when this was written. We understand that He's. He's beyond time and space, that he has created all the things that he's created. Now that we understand those creations, we realize how great he actually is. And so the, the, the names that he gives, gives himself are names that, that teach us character, the character of God, the nature of God. And so what he's saying here is sure, on the superficial, you shouldn't take God's name with vanity, meaning for my own benefit, for my own glory. Or it can mean something else. He says, you shall not take the Lord, your God's name in vain. It can be just for your own benefit. Okay? And that would, that would speak to, you know, using God's name for your own benefit. And just a common everyday language in the way we speak. It could be not using it as in curse words. Understood. All right. But it could be that vanity is the other translation of this word which means falsely. So if God's talking about all the his names, his character, nature, we shouldn't take it for our own purposes. That would be true. For our own common interest, our own common use. That would be true. But if it's falsely, then that digs a whole lot deeper. And what it's saying is, if you use the word, let's change it from. Change this word shave, shave. Let's change that word from that to. From vanity to falsely. And read it. Thou shalt not take the Jehovah of Elohim falsely, which means don't take his character nature. And how do I know his character nature? By his word, by his revelation to me, how I should not take his word falsely, meaning use it for my own vain benefit in a way that is untrue. Now, when you, when you add this to this understanding, that brings in the idea, which by the way, is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments. You bring in the idea of blaspheming or blasphemy. And really, that's what this is about. This is about taking the way God has presented himself and then presenting that in a false manner, blaspheming him, his name, saying that he is doing, or he has a character, or he has a nature that's clearly against how he's revealed himself. And that's a deep dive. That's a, That's a deep understanding. And the reason is, is because. And it's an important understanding. And the reason it is is because when we do that, we put a roadblock up for others. When we tell someone that Scripture says this, or God has revealed himself to be that, and that is clearly not how he has revealed himself, or it's clearly out of line with some other passage of Scripture. I was having a conversation with a young man yesterday, and it's, it's. It was a great conversation. Because when you're, when you have a interpretation of Scripture that is clearly, clearly different than some other passage of Scripture meaning your interpretation, and then a clear reading of that other passage, your interpretation and that passage are in conflict. That means that your understanding of the passage that you're trying to purvey, give out, teach, tell others, is false. It's not true. It's a falsehood. Because the Scriptures are not in conflict, your understanding of them may be in conflict. Your. Your understanding of how God has spoken is in conflict. You see, you. We can't have a battle between Scriptures, okay? Scriptures do not battle against themselves. God's presentation of himself is not in conflict. Your understanding of it might be, which means that your faults in your understanding of it, you don't fully understand it. You don't fully get it and that, that happens to me all the time. I don't, I don't totally know how to put the puzzle together so that I see it in its fullness. That happens. But when I act like my interpretation is the way it ought to be, knowing that it doesn't fall in line with some other aspect of Scripture, well, then I'm the one being false and I'm. I am telling others, or I am taking his character nature falsely, intentionally, which in the purest sense of the word is blasphemy. Okay? And by the way, Jesus said, you know, that you could blaspheme him and his Father and there wouldn't be eternal consequences to it, but you couldn't blaspheme the Holy Spirit. And you go, well, why? Well, I'm going to tell a little secret here. You're going to. If blasphemy is taking God's character in nature as he's presented himself falsely, you're going to do that a little bit. You are, as God has presented himself and as Jesus has presented himself, you're going to take God's name vainly, meaning you're going to, you're going to think he's this. And you're either so limited in your understanding of that that you're wrong, or you're, you're totally out of line with how that works with other aspects of how God has revealed himself. So you're wrong. You're going to do that. All right? God understands that. God gives grace for that. Okay, He. He was saying, but if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, meaning we understand what the work of the Holy Spirit is. And if you blaspheme his work by saying things falsely about how he does things, you've limited your ability to even know God. Because who reveals God's character nature? Who reveals these aspects of God's character nature to us? The Holy Spirit. So if I, if I attribute things to the Holy Spirit that are false and clearly false, then I have put a roadblock up to me actually knowing the truth because I have attributed that which is untrue about the source of the truth that's coming to me. And so I messed myself up real bad. And so that's why Jesus warned them, don't blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Don't, don't, don't, don't. In fact, Paul said, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Okay? Why? Because the Holy Spirit's the one that's revealing these things to us. And I need to understand even how Jehovah and Elohim work together, how the Lord God and the common name for God and Adonai and Yahweh and all the other names of God. I need to know how those all work. And I can't limit the source of that information, that knowledge, that revelation, which is the Holy Spirit. And I can't limit God's word by attributing things that I know are untrue about God's Word to God and actually come to a revelation or understanding of who he is. I can't do that. And so the whole purpose of this passage is to say, don't do that. Don't say that the Bible says this. And then your, your interpretation of what that is is totally against some other passage of scripture which clearly tells us that your interpretation is not true. Your, your naming God is not true. He said the Lord, the Lord, then he goes on, for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless, meaning he won't. He can't redeem you. He can't. He can't wash you, can't clean you that taketh his name in vain or taketh his sheen falsely. He says, I can't, I can't, I can't. What you. It's the idea of to redeem, to fix, to make right, to, to. I can't do that. It's not even possible to do that if you're taking my name falsely, which means you're attributing my word wrongly. I can't. I can't cleanse you. I can't make you innocent. I can't. I can't unpunish you. I can't do that if you're, you're not listening to what I say, who I really am. Now, if you think about that in its depth, this is far more important a, a commandment than don't say God, which comes from Theos in the Greek. And actually the word God is a, well, the English word God is actually a pagan word for a spiritual being. That's not God. So in some ways, when I even say the word God is a English speaking person. I'm attributing to Elohim and Yahweh a terrible name. And you see, well, you do that all the time. What's important is how he reveals his character, nature to us through His Word. And when we attribute falsely his revelation to us, we are really messing up because we're limiting really how we know Him. As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.