Dishonoring God's Name (Lev. 24:10-11)

11/5/2008 9:11 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Dishonoring God’s name

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Leviticus 24:10-11

            Message of the verses:  “10 ¶  Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp.  11  The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.)”

            God had already given the children of Israel the Ten Commandments and the third commandment is “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.”  In verses 10-23 there is a story of a man who has taken the name of the Lord in vain an it goes on to show what happened to this man after breaking the third commandment.  As Dr. Wiersbe points out this seems like kind of an unusual place to interject this story, however this story illustrates how holy the name of God is.

            The first two verses of this story give the background of who this man was and who his parents were.  He was the product of a mixed marriage for his mother was one of the children of Israel from the tribe of Dan and his father was an Egyptian.  Nothing more is given about his father whether he was alive or dead, there with his wife and son or back in Egypt.  The point of the story is that this man has taken the name of the Lord in vain, which meant that there was no fear in his heard for the Lord.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  One of the proverbs tells me that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  There are times in my life, whenever I sin that I am not demonstrating that I have a fear of the Lord in my life otherwise I would not sin, and this was the case of this man in this story and he ended up loosing his life because of it. 

            I think that people today think that they get away with taking the name of the Lord in vain and other sins, but the truth of the matter is that they will one day be judged for breaking God’s holy laws, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

            I must say that yesterday’s election results were a disappointment to me, yet they were not surprising to me because I truly believe that God is judging America for breaking His laws and having no fear in doing so.  I do not know how much it may mean that I am studying about a man who came from a mixed marriage who curses God and then pays for it with his life and a President elect who seems to have little fear of God and who also came from a mixed marriage.  Now I want to be careful to say that there is a different meaning for a mixed marriage in the Scriptures, for that means between a believer and an unbeliever not just a mixture of countries or color of skin, but here in America we have called a marriage between people of different color mixed marriages for a long time.  This could very well be a coincidence, but maybe not?

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Trust in the Lord with all of my heart and lean not upon my own understanding, in all of my ways acknowledge Him and He will direct my path.
2. Trust the Lord for the outcome of this election knowing that it was He who chose our new President because that is what the Word of the Lord says.

 Memory verses for the week:                                             Romans 6:1-4

1. What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

11/5/2008 9:47 AM