Welcome to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Act 2, Scene 2… it is night time.

Juliet is on the balcony of her bedroom. Believing she is alone, Juliet cried-out from her heart… “What is so special about a name? A rose, even if it were called something else, would smell just as sweet.” Juliet is forbidden by her family to associate with Romeo because he is a Montague. If Romeo had any other name, it would be fine. She reasoned that his name is meaningless as he would still have all the perfection that he has, even if he were not called Romeo. With a sigh, Juliet cries out… “Oh I wish you had a different name. Romeo, take off your name and in exchange for that whole name, which is not really a part of what you are, you can have all of me.”

Juliet believed that if Romeo would simply change his name, he could have all of her. Capulet and Montague are the heads of two long-standing feuding families in the famous tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. Their blood feud brings about the deaths of the title characters when Juliet (the daughter of Capulet) and Romeo (the son of Montague) fall in love.

Shakespeare, not Juliet, is the one who is credited for wrongly thinking that a simple name-change would appease the feuding Capulet and Montague families. Names are extremely meaningful and are inseparably to each person.

The first of the Ten Commandments is primarily concerned with what we do with our hearts, the second with what we do with our hands, and the third concerns what we do with our mouths…“You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name” (Ex. 20:7). The importance of God’s name is under our consideration.

Friends, the religion of the Bible takes what we “say” very seriously—Words are very important. Jesus once said that we will be judged by every careless word we have uttered—every ill-considered word that escapes our lips. Yes, on Judgement Day, words we have uttered during our lives will be scrutinized and judged according to God’s righteousness.

Why does God take words so seriously?

Two reasons… Firstly, to reveal Himself. It is the only way we can find out what God is like. We cannot see Him. We cannot touch Him. And, we cannot hear Him with our ears. Words is the means by which we can know what God is like. Over the centuries, in His Book, God has given us 750,000 of His words! The words we utter reveal to Him and others what we are really like. 

Secondly, God uses words to change people. Preaching and teaching are God’s main channels for changing people’s lives through the revelation of His truth. In the same way, the words we use are helping to change other people. Not only are words an insight into ourselves, they are an influence over others. While the right use of words can be helpful, their wrong use can be damaging… even deadly!

What does it mean to misuse the name of the Lord? A name is that which distinguishes a person from everyone else. Our names are as unique to who we are as our fingerprints. If we separate the name from a person, we have misused their name. When we misuse a person’s name it is as if they are present at the time, hearing what we are saying about them. To use God’s name in an empty, hollow way with no meaning is a serious insult to Him.

There are several ways in which we can take God’s name and empty it of all meaning. First, to commitperjury. One of the basic problems in all human society is how to tell when someone is telling the truth, because we are all master liars. We learn at a very early age how to tell lies. How then can you tell when someone is telling the truth? One way has been to require them to swear an oath before God, their witness. However, such an oath becomes totally useless where God is not seriously believed-in by the oath-taker.

The second way of misusing God’s name is throughprofanity. The expressions, “God!”, “Gosh”, “Jeeze!”, “Oh my God!” (O.M.G.), “Jesus Christ!” are flippantly used by most people today, whether to express surprise or to emphasize a point. The media is grossly responsible for permitting the misuse of God’s name. There is hardly a T.V. program or movie where script writers, who know nothing about God, have not blasphemed the name of God in scripts they have authored. I am not upset with them as they do not know the God they blaspheme. I blame Satan, the fallen-angel, who delights to use ignorant, human instruments to blaspheme God, whom he knows very well.

Friends, today we tend to find that those who really “know” God do not say “my God!” unless they intend to say something respectful and significant about Him. God’s name is the name above all other names! (Three additional ways of misusing God’s name will be highlighted in next week’s concluding Part II.)

Best wishes,  
Bill Joukhadar