The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Evil men fill this world with demonic incantations. Devils are called upon to assist their followers in nefarious designs; this dark world is in stark opposition to the Kingdom of God. The saints use the Holy Name of Jesus to call upon God to show us His mercy. We seek salvation in the Name of Jesus because the Name of Jesus means Savior.

There are two spiritual kingdoms in complete opposition to each other — the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. The physical world stands in between these two. While we are in the material world, we experience a continual spiritual war for the possession of our souls. We are drawn to grace and goodness on one side and sin and evil on the other. The dispositions of our wills determine the outcome of the battle for our souls. If we choose to love and follow darkness, we will spend all of eternity in Hell with the devils. If we love Light and Goodness, God will draw us out of this world and into the eternal happiness of Heaven.

In this life, we often find ourselves vacillating between sin and virtue. At times we see Christians invoking the Name of Jesus for Salvation, and at other times we find them invoking imprecations and curses for destruction and damnation. While these opposites remain separate, we struggle to overcome one and fully embrace the other. Strangely, though, we find that many combine and mix these opposing kingdoms with blasphemous results. They call upon the Name of Jesus to curse and destroy. Or they call upon the devils to help and save them. This confusion is the height of insult to God, while the devils gloat and glory in this perverse disorder.

Our language is constantly under attack by evil influences. We can easily observe this in the many vulgar, indecent words punctuating almost every sentence of some people. The shock value of so many vulgar sexual innuendos frequently used has all but disappeared. However, they continue in the everyday vocabulary of many. Many use these foul words as verbs, adverbs, adjectives, exclamations, etc. Their usage is so vague and imprecise that we often have no idea what the speaker means by them. We can usually attribute it to poor education. They obviously have no grasp of the richness of a language's vocabulary. They genuinely need some help, so we pray with Jesus: "Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing."

While vulgar and crude language is deplorable, it is even worse when speakers habitually begin to abuse the Name of God. It has become common to speak God's Name in surprise, anger, or frustration. This is clearly against the Second Commandment: "Thou shall not use the Name of the Lord thy God in vain." Curses and imprecations using the Name of Jesus are not simply empty or vain use of God's Holy Name, but they are truly demonic insults and abuses hurled at God. This is blasphemy.

Praying to God or demanding that God curse or destroy souls is in direct opposition to the very meaning of the Holy Name of Jesus, which translates as Savior. Jesus came to save, not destroy. God wills our salvation, not our damnation.

The world often presents us with the idea that God sends evil people to Hell. This is not entirely true. The damned souls in Hell chose to go there. God simply acknowledged and accepted their choice. These miserable people hated and abused God and His gifts to the point that they, like the devils, desired to be as far away from God as possible. They did not want to think of God or ever see Him. Their affection for His creation was only an added way for them to insult and abuse God's graces (gifts).

How do souls become so abusive to God's goodness and patience? It may be that it is, like most things, a matter of progression. Children learn and imitate the risqué in their thoughts, words, and actions. A perverse love of the vulgar, profane, immodest, impure, etc., sets the stage for greater sins. Bad words that soon lose their shock value develop sins against the Second Commandment. They find a shock value in using God's Holy Name as empty expletives. Next comes the demonic attraction to curses and blasphemies. These are the marks of the reprobate and all those who follow them into Hell.

The Holy Name of Jesus is before us at the beginning of our civil year to inspire us to love God and serve Him and correct any carelessness or evil habit that we may have developed. If we wish to correct ourselves in this matter, we need to begin with all indecent and unbecoming language. If we purge our thoughts and desires from indecent or inappropriate words, we will never have to worry about them ever "slipping out of our mouths." With this foulness out of our hearts and minds, it will simply never occur to us to ever abuse God's Name or break the Second Commandment in any way.

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