Reducing the Name of God (or the Great I Am)

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Text — 1 Sam 4-6; Exod 20:7

  1. The Israelites have engaged in battle against the mighty Philistine army. (1 Sam 4)
    1. The superior-equipped Philistines on this particular day soundly defeat the army of Israel — 4000 Israelites are killed in that battle. The elders of Israel are very upset and begin to ask what can be done to turn the tide of battle against them.  Someone gets the idea to go up to Shiloh and bring back the Ark of the Covenant — then they would surely begin to win battles.
    2. The Ark — is a small box made of acacia wood. It is 3 3/4′ in length, 2 1/4′ in height, and 2 1/4′ in width — and it is over laid with pure gold.  The lid is spectacular because it is solid gold.  On the lid you have the mercy seat which has these golden cherubim on both sides.  Inside the ark is Aaron’s rod, some manna, and the tablets of stone the Ten Commandments are written on.
    3. The ark represents God’s presence and God’s power — it also represents the name of God in heaven. The Israelites are thinking if they can get the ark down there to them— they will have God’s presence, power, and the might of His NAME with them — and will surely win the battle.
    4. They send for the ark of the covenant — it is escorted by Eli and his two wicked sons — Hophni and Phinehas.  There is an excitement of joy in the air as the Israelites see ark of God approaching.  They begin to shout and sing with joy — it says “the earth resounded.”  The Philistines hear their great shouts and begin to be afraid, and feel that perhaps the Israelites will win the battle, for they said, “A god has come into the camp” of Israel — “Woe to us!”
    5. The Philistine commanders encourage their men — So much so — the Philistine soldiers decide to go and fight believing they can win. In that next battle there are 30,000 Israelites who die — along with Hophni and Phinehas (just as Samuel had preciously prophesied).
  1. The Philistines have an overwhelming defeat. (1 Sam 5)
    1. Not only do they kill so many Israelite soldiers — but they take the Ark of the Covenant and take it down into their land where it is taken to the city of Ashdod. There in that city there is a temple to their false god, Dagon.  Then they take the ark which represents the power, presence, and the mighty NAME of God — and put it at the feet of the statue of Dagon.  If you can imagine, they have reduced God to sit at the feet of this false god.
    2. The next morning the Philistines find the statue of Dagon fallen to the ground. They put it back in its place.  And the next morning that statue has fallen over again — only this time the head and hands have broken off.
    3. About that same time — the people of Ashdod are terribly afflicted. Verse 6 tells us — “The hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and he terrified (“ravaged”) and afflicted them with tumors.” (6)  Someone decides that the ark of God cannot stay in their city, and they want to be rid of it.  So the ark is sent to the city of Gath where tumors broke out on the people of that city as well.  So the next place was Ekron — but the same thing happens to them as in Ashdod and Gath.
    4. So they gathered all the lords of the Philistines and decide the best thing to do is to get rid of the ark once and for all — and to send it back to Israel.
  1. The ark of God is returned to Israel. (1 Sam 6-7:2)
    1. They build a cart that is pulled by two milk cows who have never worn a yoke. They load the cart with the ark and a guilt offering (golden image).  They send the cart back to Israel which goes to Beth-Shemesh — which is at the border of the Israel and Philistine countries.
    2. When Dale Manor — who is an archaeologist — leaves us for a number of weeks in the summer to go dig in the ground in Israel — he is the Field Director of the dig at Beth-Shemesh.
    3. The people of Beth-Shemesh were harvesting their wheat when they looked up and see the ark of the Lord approaching. They broke up the cart for burning — and they took the two cows as a burnt sacrifice to God.  But in their excitement — 70 men some of the men of Beth-Shemesh take off the lid to the ark and peer down inside of it.  And the anger of the Lord now burned against that city and — and most Hebrew manuscripts will say 50,070 men were struck down.
    4. When the men of Beth-Shemesh saw what had happened — they also send the ark away to Kirjath Jearim to the house of Abinadab — the house on the hill. It will stay there for 20 years until David becomes king of all Israel.
  1. We are talking about the NAME of God this morning — or we TREAT the name of God.
  2. Illus — In March, 2013 — A professor at Florida Atlantic U. asked students to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper — place the paper on the floor — and then stomp on it. Most blindly complied — but some refused — and one student even went to school administrators to complain.  Ryan Rotela — then a junior at FAU  told local media that he went to school officials to protest the assignment — “Anytime you stomp on something it shows you believe that something has NO VALUE… So if you were to stomp on the word Jesus, it says that the word has NO VALUE.”  To their credit — the school posted a public apology on their website.1
    1. What do we do with things that no longer have any value to us? We throw them away.
    2. When we take the NAME of God — and treat it as though there is little or no value to His name — we are taking the holy name of God — putting it in a trash can — and taking it out to the curb.
  1. God and His Name are to be REVERED.
  1. God’s anger burned against the Philistines because His name is to be reverenced.
    1. How would you feel if someone borrowed something of yours? Maybe your car, tools, or clothes.  And the person who borrowed it did not treat it with respect.  When it was eventually returned it and it was obvious that not much care was taken because the item is dirty or scratched up or broken.  You would feel like they don’t respect you.
    2. How would you feel if someone began to take your family name and to disparage that name? How would you feel if someone took the name your grandfather and father handed down to you and began to mock, ridicule, or belittle your name — and throw it in the trash?
    3. Knowing how you would feel in those circumstances, you can understand what God must have felt when He saw the ark sitting beside a false god of stone — and God held every person ACCOUNTABLE for treating Him that way.
  1. We remember the Ten Commandments in Exod 20.
    1. I suspect all of us remember the Third Commandment in Exod 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (ESV)
    2. What does it mean to take the name of God in vain? It means “to reduce to rubble; or to make inferior.”  It is to treat it as meaningless and useless — something to be thrown away.
    3. Exod 3 — Do you remember the time Moses was out in the wilderness? He looked up to the side of the mountain and saw that bush that was burning with fire — but was not being consumed.  In Moses’ curiosity, he climbs the side of the mountain and approaches the bush.  God told Moses to take off his sandals because the place where he was standing was holy ground — because God’s presence was there.
    4. God made and announcement to Moses — He wanted Moses to return to Egypt and to free His people from their bondage. Moses wasn’t sure about the announcement.  He didn’t want to go back to Egypt, and offered up different excuses for not going.  But one excuse was, “When I go back to Egypt and the people ask, ‘Who sent you?’ what am I going to say?”  God spoke those famous words to Moses, “Moses, tell them — I Am Who I Am.”
    5. Moses was to tell them the “I Am” sent him. I guess that means God is everything — He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-places.  He is perfect in justice… mercy… love… and salvation.  He is THE GREAT I AM!

And what a tragic MISTAKE it is for any of us to take the name of the great “I Am” — and reduce it to the garbage heap… or to relegate it to a place of inferiority.

  1. Three Common Ways We Reduce the Great I Am to Rubble?
  1. By our profanity.
  2. Every time we talk about the third commandment — someone talks about profanity or obscenity. But I’m not going to talk about profanity as such.  Oh, I know you experience profane or obscene talk out in the world.  You can hardly go anywhere these days without hearing someone using a string of cuss words.
  1. Someone defined profanity as an inability to utilize the English language. I think he is right.  Profanity and vulgar speech doesn’t enhance one’s ability to communicate.
  2. I think profanity is the use of strong language by weak people.
  3. I want to talk about when people use profanity and embed the name of God with that profanity.
  4. Take this test — Listen all this week to the amount of times you hear the name of God used with some vulgar word. Count how many time you hear profanity and God’s name used together from co-workers, people you come in contact with, on the television, and maybe even in your own life.  It will surprise you how common this practice is.
  5. People can control their language — I have played golf with countless people who have used vulgar language. But the moment they learn that I am a preacher — they are able to clean it up immediately.
  6. Illus: I was at the Bison football game last night. Usually our seats are on row L in the reserved section.  But Lael was not with me and I saw Mike Wood and Al Frazier sitting up about 5 or 6 rows higher — so I went up to sit with them.  Early in the game I had my iPhone 6s out and it slipped out of my hand and bounced at my feet and went through the crack in the bleacher.  It fell 2 stories and landed on the sidewalk.  I immediately went down to retrieve it — but in my heart I knew the screen would be shattered.  I found the case lying on the sidewalk — and the phone came out of the case and was about 4 or 5 feet away.  I picked it up and there was not a scratch on it and the screen was undamaged.  Don’t tell me you can’t control your language. For 30 seconds that’s all I was doing!
  7. How does God feel when people — people who can control their tongue — DESECRATE His holy name with profanity and shove into the gutter with foul language? Maybe the same way He felt when the Philistines took His great name and placed it at the feet of Dagon.  God says He will not hold that person guiltless.
  1. By our FRIVOLOUS SPEECH.
  2. Frivolous talk are words that come out of our mouth without even thinking — they are words we say out of habit. We may not mean anything by them — it’s just how we talk.
  3. Slangs — We don’t hear these as much — but I grew up hearing older folks say — “Laud, Laud,” “Gosh,” “Golly,” “Geez,” or “Gee whiz.” Slang for the name of Jesus.  I was so accustomed to these expressions and slangs I didn’t realize I picked up a few of them along the way.
  4. One you hear constantly today is — “O my God!” We don’t like hearing that in here — but we hear it all the time out there.  Or some will text OMG for short.
  5. People will even refer to God and flippantly say — “The Man upstairs,” or the “Big Guy in the sky.” Don’t these expressions reduce our great God and His great name to rubble?

Maybe this is the one we are most guilty of… We can reduce God to rubble…

  1. By our own SILENCE.
    1. Maybe it is when we do not protect the name of God.
      1. We hear someone using the name of God in a profane or frivolous way, and we do not stop that person and ask them not to use language like that around you.
      2. We hear a joke where God or Jesus is the butt of the joke — or where “Jesus and Moses go out to play golf one day” — and we do nothing to protect the awesome name of God.
    2. Maybe it is when we do not lift high the name of God.
    3. When a church is growing it’s easy for the preacher to say — “Look at all that we have done” — and never speak the name of the great I Am and give Him all the glory for what He is doing in our lives and in this church. We get so involved in listing our accomplishments and achievements that we never get around to lifting up the name of God.
      1. Maybe we are putting God at our feet by our silence of lifting up His holy name.
      2. Characteristic of the early church: (Acts 2:42-47)
        1. Verse 43— They kept feeling a sense of “AWE.” I guess that means they would see many who were being baptized.  They would see one Christian helping and sharing with another Christian so that no one was in need.  They would see the apostles doing miraculous works and they were filled with a sense of awe as they saw God working.
        2. Verse 47 — they were PRAISING For in this sense of awe — they looked to the heavens and said that is God who is doing all these great things.
  • Acts 3 — Peter and John enter the temple through the gate called Beautiful. It is the hour of prayer.  They encounter a man who has been lame from his mother’s womb.  Like so many others like him — his only sustenance comes through begging.  Peter and John walk by and the man asks for alms.  Peter told him in verse 6 — “I have no silver and gold, I do not have, but what I do have I give you.  In the NAME of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”  He reached out and took him by the hand, and immediately his feet and ankles were strengthened.  He began to walk, and to jump about, and shout.  All the people were asking how this man could now walk and jump about.  They come to Peter and John with a sense of awe and amazement.  Peter and John tell these people, “Men of Israel, who do you marvel at this?  Or why do you look at us so intently as though we made this man walk by our power or godliness.  No, it was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, the One who glorified His Servant Jesus.”  Then they said in verse 16 — And His NAME — by faith in His NAME — has made this man strong…”
  1. Maybe when we fail to give God all the credit and all the glory in our lives and in this church, we reduce His name to rubble.

Let me remind you of the time…

  1. The children of Israel were ready to cross over into the Promised Land — they had waited for it all the lives. Joshua was going lead them across.  But the tired old leader of God — Moses — spent some time instructing the people before they crossed over the Jordan.
  2. One of his instructions is found in Deut 28:58-59 — “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may FEAR THIS GLORIOUS AND AWESOME NAME, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting.”
  3. Did you catch that? Moses told them to be very careful to obey God’s commands — and… AND… to revere His glorious and awesome name.
  4. Those statements are just as relevant for God’s people today as they were in the days of Moses. Our objective is to obey God, and to lift up His great and glorious name.

This world needs to hear what God is doing in the lives of His people.

  1. Lift high the name of God — as high as it can be lifted…
  2. In prayer, songs, and in our sermons…
  3. And in our everyday speech.

So I lift high for you the NAME of JESUS!

  1. Because “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other NAME under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
  2. And the NAME “above EVERY NAME, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 29-11).

Do you have a spiritual need we can pray about this morning?  If you will make it known to us — and through the NAME of Jesus it will be our privilege to go to the Father in prayer for you.

If you are not a child of God this morning — would you “Repent and be baptized… in the NAME of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” — and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?

1   Source: “University Apologizes for ‘Stomp on Jesus’ Lesson” By Michael Gryboski , Christian Post Reporter, published Christian Post, March 25, 2013

Noel Whitlock

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