Abusing and Misusing God’s Name

Exodus 3:13-15   Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘[YHWH], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Last week, we looked at how God’s name is more than just a label: it can include His authority and power.  This week, we’re going to look at how God’s name is abused, misapplied, for instance.

Years ago I spoke with a Jehovah’s Witness and asked him how he knew his organization was God’s organization.  “Because we carry Jehovah’s name throughout the earth today,” he said.  My next question was “What if you have the wrong Jehovah?”  He said “There is only one Jehovah.”  So, I posed this series of questions: 1.  If a pagan worships, a tree is he worshiping Jehovah?”  “No.” was his response.  2.  “If the pagan cut down a part of that tree and brought it into his home and worshiped it, is he worshiping Jehovah?”  Again, the answer was “no.”  3.  What if he carved it into an idol and worshiped it?”  Not seeing where this was going, my JW friend was getting bored with the questions but again answered “No, he wouldn’t be worshiping Jehovah.”  4.  Then I asked “What if the pagan named the idol ‘Jehovah’?”  My friend got very agitated and angrily responded “No!  That’s not Jehovah!”  5.  “So, we can have the wrong Jehovah but believe we have the right one?”  I said.  “Your God, Jehovah, is as far from the true God of the Bible as that pagan’s idol.”

Mormons will often give similar support to the question “How do I know if you are Christians?”  They often will say “It’s right there in our name – The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints” when their Jesus is the physical offspring of God the Father and Jesus’ mother Mary through physical sexual relations.  That’s hardly the biblical Jesus.  Theirs is another Jesus.

2 Cor. 11:4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

We need to be careful not to accept claims simply by believing their labels. Like Grape Nuts, which are neither grapes nor nuts, they may not be what they claim.

Christian Science would be a good example of this.  It’s neither Christian nor science.  Christian Science denies the church’s historical beliefs.  Their trinity, for instance, is “God the Father-Mother, Christ the spiritual idea of sonship, the Holy Comforter which is the divine Science” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 331-332).

Why is this important?

As with Grape Nuts, we shouldn’t be deceived by labels.  Look at the contents.  We need to be careful.  Sometimes even the use of “Church” might throw some.  The Local Church, the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology or the United Pentacostal Church are cults which often will present themselves as a apart the Christian community.  Even the Watchtower has begun to lighten up on some of the restrictions placed on their Jehovah’s Witness so members might blend in better to the general community.  They are now allowed to wear beards and the women to wear pants when they go out “in service.”  For quite some time, they were calling themselves “Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses.”  The Mormon’s informational website is now called “thechurchofJesusChrist.org” skipping the identifying “Latter Day Saints” label.

Names are important but can be misused and abused.  There are people out there who would, knowingly or not, love to part us from our money but most of all from our Lord.  Unfortunately, this is true even within the church.  There are plenty of people who have slipped into less guarded, less careful, organizations and used the organization’s name to give themselves authority.  There is more heft, now,  to claim what they say is biblical then tell you you must send them “God’s money.” 

Jesus is the one Truth (John 14:6), but there are but a million lies all around us.  It is our responsibility to make sure we’re not tricked into believing any of these lies.  How can we recognize the counterfeits?  There’s no need.  If we know the genuine gospel well, the lies are easy to detect if needs be.

Ever notice how often the solution to error, false teaching, life’s problems, spiritual stagnation, etc. is to study God’s Word?  That’s why God gave it to us:

2 Tim. 3:16-17 (ESV)  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

So, even if an organization calls themselves “Christian,” has “Christian” in their name, or tries to align with Christian organizations to gain reputation, our job is to look to the contents of that organization.  What do they really teach and dies it align with Scripture?