Does God Bless Blasphemers?

Can anyone realistically expect God to grant blessing and revival to any church when those who are asking for it blaspheme His holy Name when they pray? Will God answer those who use His Name as a kind of 'filler' in their prayers, used to give them time to think what next to say? The third commandment forbids the thoughtless use of His Name, but Christians no longer believe the ten commandments, indeed they might not even know them.

One of the great strengths of the Huguenots is that their liturgy required church members saying the ten commandments each Lord's Day, thus reminding them of their obligations to the Lord, one of these being not to take His Name in vain, not to use it lightly or thoughtlessly. Why this prohibition? The reason given is that "the Lord will hold anyone guiltless who takes His Name in vain."

Now where does that leave those who do this repeatedly? In a most precarious position. Those who do this are asking God to bless what He has promised to punish! They expect God to turn a blind eye to their profaning His Name in prayer. He can as easily do that as cease to be God. God's law is a perfect reflection of His holy nature - its tells us what God is like. The Bible urges us to strive to be like God. The covenant LORD reveals His true nature; He reveals how He is to be approached and what manner of life each of us is to live if we are to please Him. Now if we do not know the Law of God as summarised in the Decalogue, how can we possibly live to please Him? And if we deliberately ignore, neglect or overlook the divine law, we are real fools if we believe that God will answer our prayers.

I can remember while in pastoral ministry seeking to teach our Christian members on how to pray to our loving heavenly Father, only to be met with opposition from irate elders who told me that they had been praying for so many decades, and who was I to tell them how to pray properly! I could have written their prayer and repeated it without error. It was just a saying of religious/spiritual words with your head bowed and your eyes closed, in a church meeting, and thinking this was prayer, imagining that this was talking to God!

Where is the church to return to? She must take a very serious and focused look at the teaching of Scripture regarding how we are to approach Him, re-visit the practice in the church at her most glorious period - in Calvin's Geneva, and take on board what the great Reformer teaches the true church to do.

This year being the quincentenary of Calvin's birth on 10th July, is a most fitting time to return to our true spiritual roots, and from this fountain to drink in what God was saying to the churches at that time, and through them, to us in our day.