NOTE: Before starting to read this post, it would be helpful to have read the first section (the name of God) of the About page, and this other short post.

Yehowah (God) takes His name very seriously. So should we.

In fact, He takes his name so seriously that He does not want people to even mention the names of any other “god”. (Exodus 23:13)

Words have power. People are created in Yehowah’s image. We have the power of words. Animals do communicate with each other in limited ways, but only people have the power of words. And, for reasons that I do not totally grasp, proper names are very powerful words.

In fact, words are so powerful that even the stars can sing! (Did you know that?) “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (see Psalm 19:3-5) Their words go out to the ends of the universe! Each star gives out two distinct radio signals: one is its own name, and the other is praise to Yehowah.

And so, because words have such power, Yehowah does not want the power of the name of some other “god” floating around out there in the universe. (Think about that for a moment.) All too often in our modern society, people flippantly things such as:

• “I’ll be safe in the arms of Morpheus.” (the ancient Roman god of sleep, root of word “morphine”).
• “Let’s call upon the rhyming gods.” (often said in a Nashville songwriters’ room)
• “I hope that Mother Nature sends sunshine.” (this one must really anger God that created nature.)

As believers in Yehowah God and in His Son Yeshua the Messiah, we must be on guard to avoid insulting our God by such flippant language. There are people out in society that hate our God, and they do things to trip-up HIs believing children. For example, there are people that use trickery to get us to unknowingly mention the names of other gods. Here are some words and phrases that we should avoid:

• “Yee-haw” (a common cowboy saying, it is actually a mockery of God’s proper name, Yehowah)
  • (a variant, “Yahoo”, is not much better, but would take a longer explanation. Avoid saying it.)
• “Doggone” (this is a “homonym” of the name Dagon (“DAH-gohn”), the Philistine fish-god)
  • (Dagon is commonly mis-pronounced “DAY-gone”, so that people won’t catch the trick.)
  • The slang saying “holy mackerel” comes from the worship of Dagon. The famous Biblical strongman Samson destroyed the temple of Dagon.
• “Sunday” invokes the sun-god, which in in the ancient Middle East was named Baal — the arch-enemy of Yehowah God. Other days of the week are also named after foreign gods.
  • Monday = “moon day” (the moon-god of Mesopotamia was named Allah). Tuesday = Teuton’s Day (Titans Day) Wednesday = “Odin’s day”. Thursday = “Thor’s day”. Friday = “fire day” (many cultures have a fire-god). Saturday = “Saturn’s day” (the Romans worshiped Saturn)
  • By contrast, even under 70 years of Communist oppression, the Russian people still call the first day of the week Vosskresseniye, which means “Resurrection day”. We should call it Jesus Day. (Some Christians do call it Lord’s Day, but that leaves wiggle room for “other lords” for other people, such as Satanists. By calling it Jesus Day, we specify which Lord.)
• “Peter” (slang for a penis) is from the Greek word petros, meaning “rock” — root of petroleum.
  • The slang use is a way to mock the Apostle Peter. (His actual name was Simon. “Rock” was his nickname. Compared to some of the others, his sometimes shaky faith was like a rock.)
• “Gay” (now considered a “polite” word for a homosexual) is derived from the Greek name Gaia, the ancient Mother Earth goddess. (I did not “make this up”, either. Years ago, I did research in a university library about the history of the homosexual agenda. They chose the term “gay” for this reason.) The original meaning of “gay” was the state of being “happy and wholesome”. The other reason that they chose “gay” was mockery. I refuse to use the word “gay”, and instead I call them what they are: queers. (In a revealing bit of linguistics, using the word “faggot” for a homosexual comes from the Middle English word for “a bundle of sticks for burning” — as in being destined for Hell. The British slang word for a cigarette is a “fag” — same idea, something destined for burning.)

It is sad that, in order to warn Christians about these linguistic tricks that put the names of other gods upon our lips, I had to mention them at all. But, how else would you know? This is part of what Jesus meant when he wrote that we should be “wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves” while we are in a society “as sheep among wolves”. We must study the Holy Bible so well that counterfeit “gods” are obvious compared to the One True God. Part of that wisdom is avoiding being tricked into mentioning the names of other gods.