Taking His Name in Vain | The Institute for Creation Research

Taking His Name in Vain

"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." (Exodus 20:7)

This is one of the Ten Commandments, of course, and is surely going to cause great consternation one day when men and women finally appear before God. Even Christians, too sensitive to use "God" or "Jesus" in careless or profane speech, often use such euphemisms as "gosh," or "gee," or similar expressions. Almost inadvertently, even conscientious Christians, when angered or pressed emotionally, feel constrained somehow to bring spiritual concepts into their exclamations--"for heaven's sake!", "son-of-a-gun!", etc., as well as other euphemisms such as "darn," "heck," and the like.

All of this, while deplorable, is nevertheless a sort of backhanded acknowledgement that God is real and biblical revelation is true. It is significant that adherents of other religions never take the names of their gods in vain! Who ever heard a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or a Hindu do such a thing? If they want to swear, they also will often inadvertently use the name of the true God, or His Christ, in vain. Even atheists frequently sprinkle their conversations with blasphemous Christian epithets, calling on God (who doesn't exist) to send someone to hell (which doesn't exist). "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision" (Psalm 2:4).

In this day of loose and vulgar speech, Christians need especially to control their own tongues. Jesus said, "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil |or, perhaps better, 'the evil one'|" (Matthew 5:37). Jesus has warned that "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36). HMM

The Latest
NEWS
September 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What...

ACTS & FACTS
Pervasive Genome Functionality Destroys the Myth of Junk DNA
In 2001, the first rough draft of the human genome was published in a collaborative effort between private industry and the public sector.1,2...

NEWS
Happy Labor Day 2025
“For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9) Labor Day was...

ACTS & FACTS
The Age of Reptiles Myth
We hear about the Age of Reptiles, also called the Age of Dinosaurs, almost as early as we can understand the idea. Even kindergarteners might be taught...

ACTS & FACTS
The Tiktaalik Missing Link Myth
In 2004, the paleontological community—and the world—was presented with what many evolutionists considered to be a dyed-in-the-wool missing...

ACTS & FACTS
Archaeopteryx, Myth of a Transitional Fossil
In 1860, one year after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a wonderfully preserved fossil feather was discovered in...

ACTS & FACTS
Busting the Myth about Lucy
by Brian Thomas, Ph.D., and Chris Rupe, Ph.D.* Most folks consider our ape ancestry as established science, with Lucy as the main link. However,...

ACTS & FACTS
Evolutionary Vestigial Features: Worse Than Myth, a Scam
Due to teachers’ influence during the formative years of young people’s lives, they can be a powerful force in spreading evolution to new...

ACTS & FACTS
Blind Cavefish Unmask the Convergent Evolution Myth
Within the ever-expanding theory of evolution, there is a system of specialized language designed to identify each major interpretative concept. Some...

ACTS & FACTS
A Booming Generation
And the king answered them roughly; and king Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men, and answered them after the advice of the young men.…And...