Remember, we're involved in a study of the life of that great man of God, Moses. We have followed him and the Israelites to Mount Sinai where God has been giving them the Ten Commandments. And we have been studying the Ten Commandments one at a time. Today we're up to commandment number six. And commandment number six simply says, Exodus 20, 13, you shall not kill. But in order for us to understand fully all that God has built into the six commandments, we need to ask and answer three questions today.
And so here we go. Question number one is this, what is God actually forbidding here in commandment number six? Well, first, I'd like to tell you what he's not forbidding here in the six commandments. First of all, number one, God is not forbidding hunting and fishing and eating meat, because all these activities involve the killing of animals. Friends, God himself killed two animals in the Garden of Eden to provide goats of skin for Adam and Eve. God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice certain animals as part of their worship at the temple in Jerusalem. God makes it clear in the Bible that killing animals for food for us as human beings is perfectly okay. And this is not just in the Old Testament.
I mean, Jesus himself sat down at the last supper and ate a Passover lamb with his disciples. Listen, as a follower of Christ, if you want to be a vegetarian, as a follower of Christ, if you don't support hunting and fishing, that's perfectly okay, as long as you're aware that commandment number six does not require this position of any of us. Number two, commandment number six is not forbidding. Capital punishment, because it involves the killing of another human being. The fact is that throughout the Bible, God endorses capital punishment for crimes where the criminal has taken the life of another person. Genesis chapter nine, verse six, whoever sheds a man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God, God made man. And please notice that according to the Bible, the death penalty was not established to deter crime. Rather, God established the death penalty to punish someone who had destroyed, who had taken another human life, a life that was created in the image of God.
And again, we're not just talking about Old Testament teaching here. Even in the New Testament, the Bible acknowledges the legitimacy of the death penalty for certain appropriate crimes. In commandment number six, God is not forbidding us from serving as a law enforcement officer, a policeman or woman, an FBI agent, a security guard, even though this may involve killing another human being in the line of duty. Finally, number four, commandment number six is not forbidding people from serving in the military, from serving in the war or from killing enemy combatants. Friends, in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel maintained a standing army at all times. God often commanded the army of Israel to go out and do battle where people were killed.
Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What about in the New Testament, where Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, we're to love our enemies? What about when Jesus said we're to turn the other cheek when somebody does something to hurt us? Well, look here, look here in Matthew chapter five, Jesus is talking about our response to evil, our response to mistreatment as individuals. On a personal level, he is not talking about our response to evil as a nation of Israel.
For a nation state, for a nation state to turn the cheek to aggression, for a nation state to refuse to rise up and defend its citizens against the rape, the murder and the plunder of an invader, this is an utter violation of that nation state's charter to protect its citizens and defend its people from harm. So, should we have turned the other cheek to Hitler in World War II? Absolutely not. Should we have turned the other cheek as the United States of America when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941?
Of course not. And commandment number six is not telling us that we should have. Commandment number six has nothing to do with armies or wars or killing enemy combatants in a war. You say, well, Lon, then what in the world does commandment number six have to do with if it doesn't have to do with any of these things? Well, commandment number six has to do with a very specific kind of killing. The Hebrew word translated here to kill refers to one human being killing another human being with vengeance or premeditation or malice or as part of a crime. Therefore, commandment number six should really be translated into English by saying you shall not murder. And let's not forget why God forbids this, that is murdering another human being. Genesis 9-6 says, for in the image of God, God made man. Friends, the Bible teaches that human life, all human life is sacred in the eyes of God. And the reason our lives are sacred is because they are the direct creation and the direct gift of Almighty God. Genesis 2, verse 7, the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The life of the human race is a personal direct gift from Almighty God himself.
But that's not just true on the corporate level. I love what Job said. He said the Spirit of God, Job 33, has made me and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.
This is also very personal. God said to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 1-5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Listen, folks, modern evolutionary thought has caused us in America to lose sight of this great biblical truth. According to evolution, man is just an accident of nature. According to evolution, our life has no more innate sanctity than the life of an earthworm or an amoeba. Instead, according to evolutionary thinking, our lives only have value to the degree that we are able to contribute something tangible and profitable to society.
Well, I'm sorry, God says that's not right. You know, my little girl Jill, who's 15 now, is severely disabled. My little girl cannot contribute anything tangible to this society in terms of achievements or discoveries or progress. As a matter of fact, if anything, Jill is a drain on society in light of all the money and the time and the energy and the resources that it takes to care for her needs. Now, according to strict evolutionary thinking, Jill's life has little or no value. According to strict evolutionary thinking, a fetus's life has little or no value.
According to evolutionary thinking, Terry Schiavo's life lying there in that hospital in Florida had little or no value. But God declares in the Bible that this is utterly wrong. And so this is what, this is the principle that lies behind commandment number six. This is what commandment number six is based on, namely the proposition that every human life is sacred in God's eyes, that every human life is a direct gift from God, and therefore only God has the right to decide when a human life should end.
So let's summarize. What commandment number six is forbidding is somebody at their own initiative because of revenge or anger or as part of a crime, someone ending another human being's life by their own initiative. You say, well, Lon, that's great. I got it.
I got it. Commandment number six means you shall not murder. But, you know, Lon, I've never murdered anybody. What's more, I'm not planning to marry anybody, murder anybody, forgive me, to murder anybody.
Not even a Freudian slip. I'm not planning to murder anybody. And so, therefore, really, commandment number six has absolutely nothing to do with me. Let's say the final prayer and go to brunch, OK, because this has nothing to do with me. No, no, no.
Wait a minute. I said there were three questions we had to answer here. Here's that leads us to question number two. Question number two is how did the Lord Jesus tell us we were really to interpret commandment number six. Matthew Chapter five. Here's what Jesus said. He said, You've heard it was said you shall not murder. Does that sound familiar?
Hello. Of course it does. It's commandment number six. We just studied it. OK. Jesus said, You've heard it was said you shall not murder and that anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.
Watch. But I say to you that anyone who hates his brother in his heart shall be subject to that judgment. Here we find the Lord Jesus explaining to us God's full intent in commandment number six. God's full intent in commandment number six goes way beyond just the letter of the law to put it another way in God's mind.
Commandment number six. You shall not murder is not limited just to the physical act of murder. Rather, it applies to the state of mind and to the attitude of heart. That is, it applies to the internal malice and the internal hatred that prompts the actual act of murder.
You see, friends, murder is an act of the heart long before it's an act of the hands. In fact, Jesus even said this. He said in Matthew 15 for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, he said. And therefore, as far as God is concerned, to have malice in our heart towards another human being the way Rosie and Donald have malice in their heart towards one another. This is a violation of commandment number six to have hatred and bitterness and ill will and venom in our heart towards other people. This is a violation of commandment number six, because by doing this, we are committing mental murder against other people. And First John chapter three, John the Apostle writes and says anyone who hates his brother in the sight of God is a murderer. Rosie and Donald, they may never actually pick up a gun and go out and shoot one another, but in the sight of God, as far as God is concerned, in light of the hatred that they harbor for one another in their hearts, they have broken commandment number six. They may as well have picked up a gun and gone out and shot each other in the eyes of God. And friends, the same thing is true for us as followers of Jesus Christ.
You may never pick up a gun and go out and shoot anybody, but you and I can still be guilty of committing mental murder in God's sight, which Jesus says is just as serious as if we actually had carried out the physical act itself. Oh, you're back into sermon now. Look out. You're back in now.
I got your back. And all of this leads to our third question and our third question. Well, you know this question. You ready for this one? Here we go. Nice and loud.
One, two, three. Yeah. You say, Lon, so what? Say, all right, I understand what you're saying, but I mean, put some handles on this for me. Will you make it practical?
What's this really mean for me? Well, I'd love to. Folks, let's ask the question, where does mental murder come from? How does it get started in our hearts? If we mentally are murdering someone in our hearts is sitting here today, how did we get to this point in our life? Well, mental murder usually begins when someone does something to hurt us or injure us in some way and we get angry at them for doing this to us. Remember that anger, the Bible says, in and of itself is not sin. Anger is an emotional response to hurt.
It is an emotional response to being mistreated. And that's why the apostle Paul said in your anger, Ephesians four twenty six, do not sin. Friends, anger in and of itself is not sin. However, anger can easily turn into sin if we fail to handle it biblically. And how can anger turn into sin? Well, when it turns into bitterness and malice and venom and downright poison in our heart towards the person who hurt us, then anger has turned into mental murder and has become sin in our life. When we begin rejoicing on the inside, when evil befalls that other person, when we never have a good word to say about that other person, when we resent every good thing that happens to that person, when we even can't stand to be around that person or have anybody mention their name to us without on the inside going good job.
You know what I'm saying? This is mental murder and anger is turned to sin. Now, this is a deadly sin, mental murder.
We don't talk about it much in the church. It's one of those hidden sins that we never talk about, but it's real and it is deadly. Mental murder decimates friendships. It dissolves romances and it destroys families. It fills offices with tension. It ruins team unity and it kills churches. And on a personal level, as individual Christians, mental murder, if we're doing it, will rob us of the joy, the vitality and the power of God in our lives.
And if the truth be told, I would be shocked, shocked if there weren't hundreds and hundreds of us here today who aren't guilty of committing mental murder in our lives. I mean, maybe it's a husband that cheated on you. Maybe it's all about a wife who left you. Maybe it's about a parent who abused you growing up and who failed you. Maybe it's about a child who forsook you. Maybe it's about an ex-boyfriend or an ex-girlfriend who betrayed you or a brother or a sister or some other relative who did you dirty.
Maybe it's about a coworker who schemed against you or a boss who hurt your career for their own personal reasons or a bully at school that keeps picking on you. Now, hear me well. Look here a second. I'm not saying that you don't have a legitimate beef against this person. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to be angry with what this person did to you.
Look here. What I'm saying is that if that anger has turned into mental murder, then it has become sin in your life. You are now forfeiting God's power and blessing on your life because of what it's turned into. And you're in bondage to this mental murder, in chains to this thing. And you need to get free. That's what I'm saying.
And how do you do this? How do we get free of mental murder? Well, friends, remember what I said. Anger turns into mental murder when we don't handle it biblically. The way we get free of it is we go back and we handle it biblically. And there's four steps involved in that.
Very quick, I'll tell them to you and then we're done. So if when I said, you know, somebody mentions this person and you immediately are thinking, if a person's name popped up on your screen when I talked about that, all right, then here's how we're going to fix how you feel about that person. Number one, number one, the first thing we have to do is honestly admit before God there is sin in our heart towards this person. Now, we can't sugarcoat it. We can't justify it. We can't try to shift the blame onto them.
It's true. The feelings that we've got towards them are ugly and they're repulsive and they're shameful. But friends, God cannot bring freedom into our life and God cannot bring healing into our life until we face our sin for what it is and we call it what it really is. And we own our stuff. Number two, second of all, we have to genuinely repent of these feelings of mental murder in our life.
To repent means to make a U-turn, to turn 180 degrees around. We've got to want to be free of this. We've got to find this unacceptable. We have to find it disgusting and repulsive in our life. And we have got to say to God, God, I don't want to feel this way anymore.
I want to be free and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Number three, we have to disavow all desire to see evil come onto this person. We have to disavow all desire for us to bring evil on this person. Romans 12, 17, God says, never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Never take your own revenge. Listen, not even in your own heart don't take your own revenge against these people. You say, but Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute. After what they did to me, after the way they treated me, after the way they hurt me, I mean, you're telling me that I'm just supposed to turn them loose?
You're telling me that I'm just supposed to let go of this situation? I mean, what about justice, Lon? What about justice? Why should they get off scot-free after what they did to me? Whoa, hold on.
I didn't say anything about getting off scot-free. Step number four comes now. We've got to turn them loose.
And step number four, we've got to give them to God. We've got to rely on God to take care of justice for these people. Listen to what God says, Romans 12, 19, never take your own revenge.
Why not? Well, but leave room for God's wrath, the Bible says, for it is written, vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay. Listen, folks, God is a God of justice. That is one of the attributes of Almighty God.
It's one of the things that make up his character that are that are cultureless and timeless and non-negotiable. God always sees to us that justice happens. And God says, I'm the one who will take care of vengeance for you.
I'm the one that if there's justice to be done, I will carry that justice out for you. Galatians 6, verse 7, Paul says, nobody makes a fool out of God for whatever a person sows, that is precisely what they will reap. See, if you could sow mistreatment of people, if you could sow injustice, if you could sow wrong treatment of others and you could reap the blessing of God, God would be a fool. Paul says, nobody's going to make a fool out of God.
It's not going to happen. You plant rutabagas, friend, you're going to reap rutabagas. You sow broccoli, you're going to reap broccoli and you sow unjust treatment of other people and evil and mistreatment and God says, you're going to reap the results of that because I'm going to personally see to it, nobody makes a fool out of me, I'm a just God. Now in light of that, the point is that if God is going to bring true justice to every person that's ever injured us, friends, then we don't have to. We don't have to. We don't need to grab these people around the neck and choke them in our heart every time we think about them. We don't have to do that. We can turn them loose.
Look, not to go scot-free. That's not what you're turning them loose to do. You're turning them loose and delivering them into the hands of an all-just God who says, nobody's making a fool out of me. I will see to it that what went around with you comes around.
You can trust me. Romans chapter 12, verse 20. So then, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If your enemy is thirsty, give him something to drink, for in doing so, you will heap burning coals on his head.
Why? Because if you take your own revenge on this person, God's going to say, I'm sorry, you already did it. There's no need for me to step in. When you treat them right and return good for evil, you leave room, God says. Now, for me to come in and bring justice on that person, listen, God will always do a better job than you'd ever do, bringing justice to the person that hurt you. Stay out of it.
Give them water, give them food, give them whatever they need, and leave them in the hands of Almighty God. Now, when I think about this, what really helps me with it is a little memory device that I call be a tunnel and not a wall. You say, what does that mean?
Well, think about it now. What does a wall do? When something hits a wall, what does it do? It stops right there, falls right down on the ground.
When this is your anger that hits that wall, it falls down on the ground and it lies there and it rots and it decays and it putrefies and it stinks and it contaminates everybody and everything around it. But you know what a tunnel does? What does a tunnel do?
When things hit a tunnel, what happens? Goes right on through, yeah? Goes right on through. And that's what God says. He says, look, when it comes to how people treat you and their mistreatment of you, don't be a wall.
Don't allow that mistreatment to stop there along with all of your anger and to lie there and putrefy and stink and contaminate everybody's life. Let it go right on through. God says, I'm sitting right on the other side with a catcher's mitt.
I am. I'm right down at the bottom of the tunnel just waiting for it. You just let it come right on through that tunnel and I'm there to catch it and I'll take care of it.
I'll take care of it. And friends, this is how we stay free of mental murder our whole life as followers of Christ. We have to be tunnels, not walls. And we have to let people and what they do to us and the evil that they try to pull off on us, we got to let it just go right through the tunnel. And the beautiful part about it is when we let it go through the tunnel, we're just not letting it go. We're letting it go on to a righteous, just, almighty, all-seeing God who says vengeance is mine, I will repay.
You can count on that. And that's what gives us the confidence to keep our hands off of it and just let it go right on through. Folks, when we live life based on the attributes of the living, risen Christ, then we live life correctly.
And this is one of his attributes, his justice. And so let me conclude and say that this is how we need to live. Many of us here need to stop violating commandment number six. Many of us here need to become tunnels today. We need to release people from the stranglehold that we have them on in our hearts.
We need to let them go and let what they did to us go and let it go on to God and let him worry about justice, not us. And you know, doing this one time is not always enough. Sometimes we can do it once, and then the minute we see that person again or we hear their name again, we got to do it again and again and again. We got to be tunnels again and again and again. And so maybe you just need to walk around all day like I do, going, be a tunnel, be a tunnel, be a tunnel, be a tunnel. You know, when you see them, you just say to yourself, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, tunnel. Now your friends will think you're nuts, but you'll be healthy.
You will, you'll be healthy. You just walk around saying, I'm a tunnel, Lord, I'm a tunnel, make me a tunnel, I'm a tunnel, Lord, don't let me be a wall, I'm a tunnel, Lord. I'm telling you, it's wonderful. In my job, there are lots of opportunities to be a wall.
Trust me. And the only way I've lasted 27 years as a pastor is God taught me early, thank God, be a tunnel. Lord, you take care of this. I'm not going to raise a finger to deal with this, Lord Jesus. You take care of it. This is between you and them.
I'm just a tunnel in between. You know what, that's how you live healthy and that's how you keep anger from turning into sin in your life. Commandment number six, mental murder is a deadly sin, my friends. And look here, the person that violating this commandment will damage the most is not the person you're mad at, it's you.
You're the one who gets hurt the worst. God in His love says, don't do this. God in His mercy says, don't do this because I care about you and this is going to cause you to become an unhealthy, sick person. Don't do this.
Be a tunnel. And I hope many of you will take that to heart if that's the case in your life. Let's pray together.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to give you just a moment. If you need to talk to God about this person or some people in your life, this is the moment to do it. If you want to let them loose and let God have them and let Him set you free, liberate you from the bondage of that kind of hatred and bitterness, this is your moment to say, Lord, with your help, I'm going to be a tunnel from now on about this, starting today. So you take a moment and talk to God if you need to. Lord Jesus, you know that it's a world full of hurt, mistreatment, and unkindness that we live in.
And every one of us are touched by these kinds of treatments that other people do to us. Father, I want to pray that you would use what we've talked about today to give us a biblical strategy to make sure that people's mistreatment and the anger that it causes in us that is legitimate, that that doesn't turn into sin in our life by turning into mental murder, but rather that we know how to be tunnels and let all of that anger and all of that mistreatment come on to you. Thank you that you are a righteous God. You are a just God who says, I will repay, and whatever a person sows, that's what they'll reap. Lord Jesus, thank you for that confidence we can have. Help us to live our life based upon your attributes, confident that anything we let go through the tunnel and on to you.
Lord, we didn't just let it go scot-free. We let it go to Christ who will deal with it. Set us free, Lord, of the people that we prayed to you about today and our feelings toward them. Set us free, Lord, from the bondage of bitterness and hate in our life. Set us free to rise up and live for Christ and enjoy the vitality and the blessing that He has for us. Set us free by teaching us to handle our anger biblically. Change our lives because we were here, and we pray this in Jesus' name. And God's people said, amen. Amen.
