Deuteronomy 5:17, The Sixth Commandment

The Sixth Commandment and Christ’s Greater Love

Deuteronomy chapter 5 or 17. Hear the word of the Lord You shall not murder. If the Lord has blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well sergeants Shughart and Gordon were circling overhead in a helicopter.

Beneath them clear for them to see was a crashed US Army helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia. It had been shot down by militiamen who were now converging on the crash site. Probably to finish off whoever was left alive inside the crash helicopter.

Sergeants Shughart and Gordon asked the officers in charge for permission to land by the helicopter and protect any survivors. The first time that they asked they were denied. It was too dangerous. They were told they may not be able to send help for a while.

Just the two of you, but the sergeants couldn't stand the thought of one of their friends being left down there alone. So they asked for permission again. Again they were denied. But they were not men without chest.

They believe that there was something greater than their safety and comfort. They believed in self-sacrifice. They believed that love of life meant more than just me loving my own life. So they asked one more time.

They wanted to go down and protect the survivors. The commander asked them if they knew what they were asking. That they could not be guaranteed that they would be relieved anytime soon. They said they understood so the helicopter they were in swooped down.

They jumped off and ran to the crash site. They found one man left alive. The pilot. The pilot probably owes them his life. But he never got a chance to thank them because they were both soon killed. Jesus said there's no greater love than a man lay down his life for his friends.

The Sixth Commandment as a Broad Prohibition Against Killing

If the fourth commandment is the most argued against and the fifth commandment is treated as if it's the most most trivial. Like last week honor your father and mother then the sixth commandment. It's probably the least controversial of all the commandments.

That's what distinguishes it. This is many treated as the most obvious almost everyone will say they believe in the sixth commandment. There might be some argument about whether it prohibits all killing.

Like some pacifists say or only murder. But there is no real argument that it is a good thing that people should obey it and take it seriously. That it shows us that life is important that it comes from God and should not be taken lightly.

People should love life in Hebrew Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 17. There's only two words it's and so it's one of the This and the few verses to come after it and also the same ten commandments in Exodus 20.

Some of the shortest verses in the Bible here, you know only two words. It's a sweeping broad command. Perhaps the only controversy about it is whether the word there the verb should be translated as kill or murder a murder being an illegal unjust killing.

Some point to the fact that elsewhere in the Bible like later just in this very book like the passage We passage we read last week, but the member of the disobedient son who's taken out in stone. The death penalty is prescribed and let's not forget the historical context of this passage that Israel is on the verge of the promised land.

They're just about to invade it and they're gonna engage in a lot of killing. So they people reason then it cannot possibly be translated as simply no killing, but it should be no murder. But that kind of reasoning well.

It may be good for weighing what is ultimately the message of the whole Bible the full counsel of God. That may be valid for that that really doesn't answer the question as to what the word here means in this verse the word translated as murder in the SV and NIV is use of Accidental killings what our legal system might call manslaughter just in the previous verse in chapter 4 verse 42.

Just previous chapters. It's a chapter 4 verse 42. This word is you same word in Hebrew of the one who quote who kills his neighbor? Unintentionally, and obviously that's not a that's not a murder. That's a manslaughter.

It's an accident. And and for that there are cities of refuge set aside for the one who accidentally kills someone because he's not a murderer. He shouldn't so he shouldn't have to be killed for it. He's cities of refuge set aside so he could flee to them.

So he won't he'll be protected from the family of the victim who maybe doesn't believe that it was an accident and tries to go looking out for revenge, so the sixth commandment is properly translated as No killing not just narrowly as no murder.

The Commandment’s Bias Toward Preserving Life

Now sure there are exceptions no killing but there are exceptions, but there are exceptions that uphold the rule the rule is No killing. I think some modern evangelicals probably don't appreciate this because they're just sometimes too caught up and trying to win political Arguments about the justice of the death penalty or of self-defense or of war.

But it's an important point to make God's baseline. What he begins with the general rule before we start getting into the details the nitty-gritty things of capital punishment and the rest maybe some of the get in medical care or the the nitty-gritty of some you know hard calls to make about you know what Technology to use to keep someone alive.

The the basic principle though is no killing start. With that the bias of the command is to preserve life. Do-not-kill. When we take life we put in ourselves in the place of God. We steal something that God created and that God owns and stealing from a God who is jealous is a very risky venture.

So God tells us in a stern straightforward way no killing. The sixth commandment says that no one but God has the right to determine when a person should die. Taking a human life is never made right. By the privilege of power.

The wealthy nor even the president of the u .s. Has the have the right to take a life, you know. For just for merely personal reasons. He doesn't like what he didn't like so-and-so can't do that that God gives.

Gives that command in such a sweeping broad way and then only later makes exceptions only later. Does he show that he's delegated the right sometimes in some situations to kill for justice like in Romans 13 that the Emperor does not bear the sword in vain.

That we have first have a sweeping broad command shows us where his bias lies. Shows us what is one of the major fundamental guiding principles. He first tells us directly categorically. No killing because he first wants us to understand how greatly he values life.

He values life so much. We find out in Exodus 21 that we may not even take it just through carelessness. If we have an animal that we know is likely to injure someone and then we are responsible for when it does it says in Exodus 21 there right after the first edition of the Ten Commandments that.

You know you you own an ox that you know is gonna gore likely to gore somebody and then it does. Well, you're responsible for that a man who did not quickly turn an ox that he knew was prone to goring into stew.

Was showing that he considered the economic value of his ox is more important than the life of his neighbor. It'd be the same today. Today it's a selfish life denying thing say to keep a dog that might easily kill a neighboring child.

Just to keep it because he's your sentimental favorite pet or he's nice to you forget about everyone else. I remember soon after we returned from Ethiopia. Seeing a story on TV about an ambulance and hospital service for pets.

Mostly dogs and cats and I was indignant. You know there are in that Ethiopia had attended funerals for people Who died because there was so little medical care for people and here, you know. We're spending large amounts of money to get fluffy to the vet on time in a hurry.

The value we place of the lives of other people whether our next-door neighbors are total strangers on the other side of the planet should far exceed the value we put on our Comforting pets nothing gets pets.

I like my dog, but human does not equal dog. The commandment is broad no killing. Exceptions only come later when they do we know there are regrettable exceptions. So killing that it's never something we just revel in we and we just think it's just great, you know.

Go to the prison celebrate the latest execution because it's just fun. No, that's just no. Might believe in it. It may be necessary, but we don't we know that all killing is at best a sad thing. You see we might feel free to recognize that this is an important commandment and we might trivially tribute.

We may not Trivialize it. I'll make it small. Like we do the fifth commandment. We may not ignore it like we do like most people do the Sabbath commandment. We might feel free to do that because we think with this commandment the trap we fall into as we think.

Here's a commandment will never break. You know, this is the one we're safe. We like this one because we're safe on this one. We'll never violate it. We're not going to go out and murder anybody, but remember it is a broad commandment.

It takes in more than we might at first think and as the Lord Jesus shows us. It's not only broad. It's very deep too. It cuts right to the heart of our selfishness that would destroy other people. To have our own way if we thought we could get away with it.

This commandment doesn't just mean that I shouldn't take a pistol and solve my interpersonal problems with the pull of the trigger. Now sure it means that it means that violence is utterly excluded as a way for me to get my way.

But it means far far more than that. It means that I'd be willing to sacrifice my prize ox. To protect someone else's life. It means it means that I give to charity. To feed the hungry to make sure the poor have shelter and clothing and basic health care so that they don't die needlessly.

It means that we do not accept not for one moment. The the the cold kind of darwinistic idea that the less capable. Maybe the handicapped or the elderly who can't take care of themselves. That they should just go ahead and die so as to improve the human herd.

We do not allow it survival of the fittest mentality to develop toward other human beings. Well, they can't make it too bad for them. Can't feed themselves too bad for them. We don't think that we can kill to protect our property.

Our lives yes, but not just to protect our cash or our jewelry or our cars. Or whatever. When we say that our luxuries are more important than someone else's essentials. We say we wish they'd go ahead and die and so in the words of amnesia Scrooge decrease the surplus population.

When we then violate the sixth commandment, of course people have long had a little trick they play with the commandment. That trick is to redefine the the object of it. It says you shall not murder but murder.

Who? They'll say well the no killing command applies To not every human being but only to some usually to human beings like me people like us. It's like taking a piece of chalk and drawing a big line around those people you regard.

These are the real people. These are the people you can't kill those others outside the circle. Their lives aren't so valuable. They're not protected by the commandment. And Sometimes people have done this with race, you know, the in people draw a line around them are white and they're protected.

But the black people are outside. They can be enslaved or even killed if we feel like it. Sometimes people have done this with wealth and power the aristocrats. Well, they're in they have the money. They have the power and they could kill the poor peasants if they want.

In our day people are saying we should be able to do it based on age. Our disability cannot speak up or eat for yourself. You're in the you're in the out group. You can be killed if your guardian decides to if you are very old or suffering dementia many want to say you should be out and Euthanized the word if you're very young.

Still in the womb. You have no rights. Even though we know with our science today that the fetus in the womb has all the chromosomes of a human being therefore human. He or she is alive and growing therefore alive yet.

We decide quite arbitrarily just because he or she may not be able to be able to live by themselves. Well, they're not covered by this commandment. But the commandment doesn't have such loopholes. It covers all people.

Abortion, Human Dignity, and the Sin of Murder in the Heart

No killing. Abortion I believe is one of the great moral issues of our time. This is slavery was about 160 years ago, and I believe that based on this commandment. There doesn't need to be another commandment to cover abortion, you know, like you say, well, where's it say no abortion?

Well, it says right here six commandment covers it. I believe that base. I believe that's the only Logical conclusion fetus is alive. It's human. Therefore it is human life and If some human life could be taken for the convenience of another.

Well, we're all in trouble. If there's no right to life, then none of us really have any rights at all. I mean we we might one day be part of the group that is defined as out of the little circle. Those who have no right to life.

I believe that for some time. I believe it's an inescapable Conclusion, but but there was a time When I believed it is sort of the cold Product of logic. I didn't publish a brief article about it only one page long.

Not passionate just moderate in tone. But I remember that the moment that logical conclusion became a passionate conviction. It was in the middle of March 1996 and we were in Singapore. Mike I had been born about a day or two earlier and he was soon diagnosed with Down syndrome.

Actually think the doctor knew we had that before he was born. I didn't remember exactly what that was. What was down syndrome? So I looked it up like most pregnant couples. We had a big book on pregnancy be really big.

So I took that book look at the index. Under down syndrome found the page number. Flipped to the page and there was listed under heading above it reasons for abortion. My immediate instinct was to throw that book as hard as I could across the room.

Fortunately the walls there were made of cinderblock because it would have threw it so hard. It would have gone into drywall. I didn't stood up and walked across the room. Picked up the book and took it to the garbage chute where it fell nine stories into the trash where it belonged.

I Was seething. I was almost trembling with the rage that to this day. I believe is altogether appropriate. But anger as we usually experience it Is a sinful even murderous thing. We're usually angry because we feel personally insulted our sinful quest to order the world as if we were the most important thing in it is.

Thwarted someone in front of us is not going as fast as we want them to go or whatever it is. So we have anger at the one who treats us as if we were not God. Can you imagine the gall? Believing I am NOT God.

That's the way we think we devalue the life of someone by shouting you stupid idiot. As far as our hearts are concerned. We murdered the person. And the government may not care as long as we merely hurl insults.

And the church might even know you committed murder in your heart if you are able to bite your tongue. Keep up a good front. You're just shouting you stupid idiot in in your head. But the lord jesus tells us that god knows and cares.

He knows we're murderers in our hearts. And he is so passionate about the value of life. He will hold us to account for our killing. Even if we never act on it. After all maybe the only reason we're we're not acting on our our lust to murder Is because we're afraid of being caught.

Or maybe we lack the ability. We don't have a gun. And the knife we have is not big enough and whatever. The other guy we want to kill is too big for us. Or maybe we just don't want to have to clean up the mess.

I mean, oh, come on if I cut his head off here, there'll be blood everywhere. I don't want to have to mop all that up. Or maybe we're just too lazy to get a pistol out and shoot. Now, why should god excuse someone for murder if they have all the anger all the selfish disregard for the life of others.

But the only reason they don't kill is because they're simply too too lazy not a virtue. It's actually a deficiency on their part. They're too lazy to act on what who on what they really are what they want to do.

Now sometimes we read those words about jesus, you know Jesus says about about god counting our anger as murder and we think well, that's too much. That's that's too severe. Almost as though he's exaggerating, but no he's not exaggerating if god were to do any differently.

If he were only to punish those who went ahead and acted on their murderous feelings. Then he would be rewarding hypocrites. You know as long as you're enough of a hypocrite to not to act on the who you really are.

You get to go to heaven. What kind of god would that be? What kind of heaven would that be? Why should he reward someone who the only reason he never murders Is because he lacks the gumption to act on who who he really is.

Now we should be grateful. For the sake of society for the sake of our own lives that there are so many hypocrites out there. We should be really grateful that the government has created all these hypocrites by just intimidating them with punishment.

We should be thankful that a lot of people are too scared of the punishment or too lazy to be who they really are. To act on their feelings and kill. I'm, i'm glad. The murderous people out there are afraid to kill me.

For peace and safety we need to frighten many people with the police and with prisons. To keep them from expressing their anger in murder, but let's not think that at the final judgment god is going to play along with that.

He knows what we would do if we could get away with it. Most of our anger is selfish. Being cut off in traffic being insulted or ignored being passed over for promotion feeling harassed by bureaucrats our life in general.

Those things should not be the kinds of things that make us angry. That kind of anger shows our our peevish Self-centeredness and for that god will hold us to account. But that doesn't mean we're to be people utterly drained of all anger.

You know, we're we're not called to be these like passive just always. Never bothered by anything people every case of ross, you know, just let everything be. No. We are to be angry. Bible tells us be angry, but sin not.

You'll be angry when innocent life is crushed. We're to be angry at injustice. We're to be incensed when the honorable is treated as dishonorable. The lord jesus expressed the most anger at hypocrisy.

Uh acting like you believe something you you don't really believe. He was angry at hypocrites. Does that make you angry. We're to be what c .s lewis called men or women with chest that that is with with hearts that produce virtues like Self-sacrifice.

Like those two sergeants in somalia like a passion for things that are larger than ourselves. For what is right? For truth. Lies make us angry for integrity. For for which is the opposite of hypocrisy.

For honor. For protection for the innocent and punishment for the guilty for justice not just us. This kind of anger is indignation and it can be a very right thing to have. C .s lewis wrote that a lack of indignation.

In other words a lack of this anger at things that are unjust. That is that is a sign a symptom of a serious spiritual deficiency. Something wrong. If sometimes you're not angry. Things that should make you angry shows we lack a passion for justice.

Which means we lack the heart lack the chest. That would produce that should produce That passion. If the innocent are destroyed and we're placid placid about it. And we just say gonna you know case hurrah hurrah too bad for them.

We lack the kind of love of life that this commandment tells us to have. When people are victimized. Through lies that lead them astray when savage wolves destroy souls if not bodies. And we're not stirred by it.

You know, we we've been we've studied mormonism in sunday school. That's doctrine. That's that's lies. It's in a way we can study it cerebrally and learn it. But in a way that should just make us angry that people are being deceived by that kind of stuff being taught out there.

You should be stirred provoked to the depths of our heart because that's destroying people's lives. That should make us angry. When those who should be honored? Are instead insulted? Or if it's god blasphemed.

And we're not grieved. You just say well freedom of speech they can say what they want when revilers Destroy people's names their reputations. Because because really because they're afraid to destroy their bodies.

And we just passively say well. Whoever they mocked whoever they reviled they should take criticism. Then we have a problem. Perhaps we lack A Heart filled with the passions and priorities that god has.

And c .s lewis's brilliant little book the abolition of man I suggest y 'all read it one day. He writes that the crass debased murderous culture of our age the culture that calls good. Whatever gets me what I want and bad.

Whatever tells me what I don't want to hear that that culture is not the product of our culture today. Is not the product of excess thought. But of a defective What he calls fertile and generous emotion of passions of a heart a deficiency in our hearts quote their heads talk about.

People of our day their heads are no bigger than ordinary. Oh, we think you're so smart. No, it's just it's not so smart. It is the atrophy Smallness the shrinkage that the disuse of the chest beneath them that makes them seem so in other words that that thing within us like our like our Literal heart in our body that that should make that thing in our heart.

In us that should make us outraged at injustice should make us passionate for for life and for honor and righteousness. It has shrunk. It's not functioning. It's not producing the passions in our hearts and the principles in our minds that it should.

We've been taught not to use it. Don't use those passions. We've been taught don't call wrong wrong. Don't call the good honorable. We've been taught not to be bothered with hypocrisy and with greed or materialism or with lies.

You're like a child. Come on, accept it. Don't be bothered. We've been taught to live and let die. Instead of being so committed to life and god that we would rather die. So others might live our effeminate culture that is that says there is nothing worth dying for that tells us that we all are to live to fulfill our every desire.

Cannot produce the virtues that propelled sergeants. Sugar and gordon to sacrifice their lives for an injured friend. Our our country our society our churches need people desperately need people like like them.

Who care for more than just their comfort being able to live a nice life with a widescreen tv and air conditioning? But we cannot produce them. Until we love life others life more than our own as lewis concludes In a sort of ghastly simplicity We remove the organ And demand the function.

We make men without chest And expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor And are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate And bid the geldings be fruitful. In other words there is a righteous anger we must have if we were to really keep the sixth commandment.

So we disobey this commandment when we have one kind of anger. And we disobey it when we do not have another kind of anger. This is why I found I find what happened at marjory stoneman douglas high school last valentine's day so horrendous talking about no chess.

I'm not talking about the boy. He shot up the school and killed 17 people given our culture of death. We shouldn't be surprised by that. I actually understand him more than what happened outside. Men with guns at least one man in particular had to say please stood outside taking cover.

While the boy went on his killing spree inside. Now perhaps that's his training, you know, you got to do this or that take cover. Surveil the perimeter or whatever. But no, but no matter how he's trained.

A man should know that he's called to stand between a child and a bullet. He should know that If he has a heart. If he's not a man without a chest. The sad reality of our fallen world is that sometimes we have to kill in order to value life.

When Killing Is Regrettably Necessary

Sergeant shughart and gordon didn't ask to be dropped out in the middle of mogadishu to kill. But to save a life, but they did know that they might have to that they would have to kill. In order to save they also knew they might die.

Trying to save. And they did. The bias Is against killing? But some sometimes some have to be killed in order to save others. In may of 1995 mary and I attended a service at a german lutheran church in addis ababa ethiopia.

The service was to mark de day The end of the world war ii in europe and the minister was german and as was much of the congregation. So I go and met with a bunch of germans for the end of world war ii.

He spoke in german. Translated himself and then into english and he spoke clearly of the end of the war the conquest of germany by the allies as a Liberation that was his word germany was he said liberated by the allies.

But the sad truth is We had to kill a lot of germans in order to liberate more germans. But that's the reality of the sixth commandment. Joy davidman the wife of c .s. Lewis wrote the pacifist doesn't see that there are blood stains on his peace.

The bias is against killing but sometimes the facts of our fallen world overcome the bias and we have to kill. It would be great If we lived in a world in which we could always use this positive means to stop murder and crime and sin.

We'd stop crime by just increasing welfare payments. No strings attached and it would just disappear. That would be great. Or we could just sit down, you know with adolf hitler. And uh kindly reason with him.

Show him gently the error of his ways. Why he should love all kinds of people and we could all hold hands together and sing kumbaya and it would be peace everywhere. That would be great. In spiritual things it would be great if we could always talk everything out and be positive encouraging.

Not like a radio station celebrate diversity let people believe doctrines contrary to the gospel. Tell people that. Everyone exactly what they wanted to hear. Tell everyone how great they are never have to rebuke.

Or to discipline. Or to tell someone what they believe is a dangerous lie. Or to tell someone that they're sinning. That would be great a great world to live in. But it is not this world. In this world, sometimes you have to kill in order some life in order to save more of it.

And the cross shows us that. It would be great if sinners could just be saved by by sweet words. You know just by warm thoughts. How much you're loved and appreciated by god and now you should respond to him back be great if you could be saved that way.

But they but they can't some someone Had to die without the shedding of blood. There is no remission of sin. The lord jesus gave his life giving his life as a ransom. For many because his death was necessary for our life.

Murder, Religion, and the Call to Meekness

That's the world we've created for ourselves by our sin. We did it. We brought all these horrible things into this world through our sin. And then we have the temerity. To blame god for the horrors we brought to birth we complain.

We have anger at god for his judgments. When we suffer in our bodies or the insults of others or the unpleasantness of our jobs maybe the insensitivity of our spouse or Our family doing things to us to our.

Not sensitive to our needs we complain. Why did I get this? When all this befall me we get angry perhaps just the quiet simmering bitter anger That few can see but all the same. We're angry. Angry mostly at god.

That's why there's a lack of joy. Sometimes a distaste for his word a religion that is cold and informal we can even keep up the front of Of the faith, but inwardly we're screaming against the injustice.

We feel that god has meted out to us. Why is he allowing this happen to me? Despite all the talk these days about being, you know real and open with god telling me anything you want. Yeah, you can tell him that but make sure you know that that kind of anger is radically sinful.

That it reveals a hatred toward god a hatred that would drive you to kill him. If only you could get your hands on him. And is it that what happened to the lord jesus? Doesn't his crucifixion show what?

Self-willed discontent angry people will do when god comes in human flesh. You know there was principally religious people who took the lead in murdering Jesus shows us that so much religion is not a a good faith attempt to be right with god.

Much of it is another way for us to justify ourselves to impose our will. To crush anyone who stands in our way. Religion then Can be murder. Murder. When it's a tool to wipe away everyone and everything that stands in our way.

Things will be done my way or else. That's often what religion is. It's a way to make god do what we tell him to do. When that's what it is. Then it is murder. That's why the opposite of murder is submission meekness.

A willingness to lay down one's rights and life for others especially god. The opposite of the murderer is jesus. He prayed to the father not my will. But yours be done. He submitted to even those who wanted to murder him those who who conspired against him.

Provoked the seething crowd to choose barabbas. It was barabbas. Barabbas was a murderer. They chose barabbas the murderer. Over christ, so they chose a murderer over life himself. They chose a murderer because in their anger at god.

That's what they were. They were murderers and let's not flatter ourselves that just because we weren't there. That we would have done any differently. Religion that lacks genuine submission to god. It's not meek.

It doesn't submit to god to his word sometimes to the church when it's in god's will that religion that That lacks that submission is inherently murderous. It's about us arranging the world as we want it to be and woe to the one who gets in our way.

So the first sin was willfulness our first parents reaching out their hands and taking what they wanted. Not caring what anyone not even god said otherwise then that lack of love toward god who cares what he says.

I'll i'll take what I want. That lack of love toward god leads soon to lack of love for our brother to murder. To killing the brother who has something we we don't. Who has the approval of god? That we lack.

Abel found grace in the eyes of the lord and cain his brother. Hated and murdered him for it. Cain was religious. Cain offered his Sacrifices to god his self-made sacrifices, but when that didn't produce a right relationship with god.

He murdered the brother who had it. So what about you? Are you right now so deeply discontent with the faith that's been handed to you that you can you can hardly stand it. Do you hate your life. Perhaps some of you hate your life so much.

You've seriously thought of murdering the one person. That you thought could end it all yourself. Don't ever such don't ever think such a thing. Your life no more belongs to you than than does your neighbors.

Your life belongs to god and you you have no right to take it. It's not even your life. It's the life god has given you. Suicide is self-murder and no more right than any other murder instead. You must stop being a murderer even of yourself even in your imagination.

Hand over your resentments your anger your hatreds to god. Submit to his rule over you. Be meek before him. Thank him for the blessings that he's poured out in you even though. And now you know it even though.

You are a murderer. But the good news is that christ gave his life in exchange for a murderer. Like those two sergeants of somalia the lord looked down and decided to give his lot give himself his life in exchange for you.

He saw that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. He knew You were a murderer. He even knew that in your resentments at your fate you would strike out and murder him, too. But he submitted. For the joy set before him now.

Won't you submit to him and let him change your heart.