The Sixth Commandment

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 20:13

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Well, this morning we continue on with the Sixth Commandment, and I've been a little under the weather the past few days, so I missed the men's meeting where we reviewed
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Watson, although I enjoyed the chapter very much, and I won't cover a lot of the ground that he covered, though it was very profitable,
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I'm sure those of you who worked through Watson this week are all the better for it. But as we consider the
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Sixth Commandment, as we've been doing each week now, we also want to consider what our catechism says as far as questions and answers that help us frame the application.
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So question 74 for our catechism, which I think is a wonderful summation of biblical teaching, what is required in the
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Sixth Commandment, and here's the answer, the Sixth Commandment requires all lawful endeavors to preserve our own life and the life of others.
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So they take from the commandment, Exodus 20, verse 13, you shall not murder, but the heart of that commandment is the preservation of life, both of your own life and that of your neighbor's.
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So what is forbidden in the Sixth Commandment, the answer, the Sixth Commandment forbids the taking away our own life or the life of our neighbor unjustly, or whatsoever tends thereunto.
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In other words, whatever would denigrate, diminish, or ultimately lead to the loss of your neighbor's life, that is what the
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Sixth Commandment forbids. Now there's a whole other angle that will open up when we consider
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Matthew 5, which we're not going to do this morning since we plan on doing the Sermon on the
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Mount after this series. We'll wait until we get there, but of course this is a lot deeper than just the outward physical act of murder.
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Exodus 20, verse 13, you shall not murder. Now some of you may be looking down on a
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Bible on your lap and you may read verse 13 saying you shall not kill. Wise are the translations that translate you shall not murder.
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It's a very specific word that is chosen. There's many types of killing that don't all qualify as murder.
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This is a very specific word that's broader than just murder. It includes the category of manslaughter.
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The Hebrew term is ratzak. So you have within that murder as well as manslaughter. That is the willful taking away of a human life and also the unintentional taking away of a human life.
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That is within the breadth of the Sixth Commandment. Murder of course is the willful and unlawful taking away of human life.
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As we'll see, it's one of the highest forms of rebellion against God. For it, apart from all other commandments, apart from all other sinful acts, strikes at the very heart of who
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God is. It lashes out against His image and therefore God requires an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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We see this in Genesis chapters 1 and chapter 9 establishes the point. In chapter 1 of course, we understand the very nature of humanity.
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Let us make men in our image according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
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So in light of all that God has made, man, as it were, is sort of the crowning vice -regent over all creaturely forms.
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His dominion is to be exercised as God's representative within the cosmos. God created man, we read, in His own image.
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Here's something that sets man apart from all other creatures. Man alone is made in the image of God.
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In the image of God, He created him male and female, He created them.
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Now we get to Genesis chapter 9 after the flood where God in His wrath wipes the sinful depravity of man off the face of the earth.
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And in Genesis chapter 9, as He establishes a covenant with Noah, He lays down terms.
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This is what we call a common grace covenant. What we mean by that is this is the covenant by which
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God establishes the maintenance and the continuance of the world for the purpose of special grace.
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In other words, God establishes covenant grace and that covenant grace comes in the form of a common or universal grace, that which is common to all, and a special grace, that which is unique to His people.
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The one leads to the other. The common grace realm establishes and is established for the sake of God's special grace, for God's redemption.
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And so as He's establishing and maintaining the world now being repopulated through Noah, He says this,
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Surely I will require your lifeblood. From every beast
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I will require it. From every man, from every man's brother I require the life of man.
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Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man.
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You see how this is tied again to the creation account. Because man is made in the image of God, that God requires the life.
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In other words, if a man's blood has been shed, then vengeance must take place.
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By man, that offender's blood shall be shed. And the reason given is, in the image of God, He made man.
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So God's image gives the foundation for the sixth commandment. The fact that we are made in the image of God is what gives us inherent dignity.
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It's what makes our life so valuable, so precious in the sight of God. And that again is why
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I say, murder is the highest form of cosmic rebellion. To efface, to seek to destroy the image of God is the highest form of human rebellion.
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And we see murder from the very beginning. The Lord respected
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Abel in His offering, we read in Genesis 4. This is right off the heels of the fall in Genesis 3. The Lord respected
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Abel in His offering, but He did not respect or He did not regard Cain in His offering. And Cain was very angry, his countenance fell.
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So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen?
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If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, lo, sin lies at the door, its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
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Now Cain went and spoke with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
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Doubtless, Cain had heard all of the stories from Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel sitting on their parents' lap, hearing about the deceitful serpent that tore them away from paradise and communion with God.
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No doubt they had heard of the goodness of the Creator, how though that deception and fall into sin cost them paradise, nevertheless
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God in His mercy spared them. In fact, when they sought to cover themselves, which is to have no covering at all,
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God in His mercy made a covering for them, a sacrificial covering for them.
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He shed animal blood that they might be covered. Now we find
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Abel shedding animal blood to make a sacrifice unto God, a sacrifice that God accepts, but when
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Cain who keeps the ground brings a grain offering, we find that this is not regarded by God.
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And yet, do we not see God's goodness and God's mercy even here?
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In other words, God has not regarded the offering of Cain. God's worship has been slighted.
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God's majesty has been offended. How does God react to Cain? It's the most amazing thing.
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We sort of read right past it. God who is to be worshipped purely in holiness, who is to be worshipped perfectly, comes to Cain, the faulty worshipper, and he begins to reason with him.
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In other words, God seems far less concerned about the offense at the altar. He seems far more concerned about the state of Cain's heart.
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Do you notice that? He goes to reason with Cain. Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen?
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Don't you know you'll be accepted if you do well? Don't you know that sin is lying at the door? Its desire is for you.
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Don't you remember what your parents told you? Don't you know that it's seeking to destroy you like it seeks to destroy them?
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You must rule over it. And even as Cain is being shepherded, as it were, by God, he's plotting evil in his heart.
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He goes out to the field, strikes up a conversation with Abel, and then strikes Abel to death.
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So you have this contrast of God's compassion seeking to invade, as it were.
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Cain's conscience, Cain's evil intention, Cain's plotting heart. He speaks to him lovingly, out of fatherly concern.
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He seeks to stir up a pang of conscience, to turn away his heart from wrath and bitterness.
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But what does Cain do? Cain sulks away to plot murder. The warning from God's own lip does not steal his steps one moment.
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Now this scene plays out hundreds of thousands of times each moment across the world, don't you think?
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Hundreds of thousands of times each moment. That pang of conscience, that slow down.
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Why are you being so cruel, so ruthless, so full of contempt and malice and bitterness towards someone?
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Scripture says that the heart plots evil continually. Desperately wicked.
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Who could know it? You see in Cain that rather than keeping his relationship with God as the main issue, in other words,
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Cain, you have offended me. You've come to the altar and you're slighting me. You're robbing me of my due.
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That's the main issue. Your relationship with me, your worship of me is the main issue. But instead, he can only have a regard for his brother.
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In other words, he's less concerned about his relationship with God, his worship with God, his communion with God.
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What's foremost in his mind, what's troubling his conscience is his brother. Anger, envy, malice.
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So Cain sees Abel as the main issue, the main obstacle, the main concern. When he should have been seeing
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God as the main issue, the main concern. Remember, as we've established a couple weeks ago, if you don't have the first Abel, you won't get the second.
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This is a reflection of sin's depravity. What does sin seek to do? This is the first issue of sin generationally.
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We already saw that sin like a claymore mine imploded the marital relationship between Adam and Eve.
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Everything is put out of order. Instead of a loving, sacrificial leader, a man like unto
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Christ, Eve receives a tyrant who's going to rule over her, use her according to his own comforts and needs.
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And her desire will be for her husband, but he'll rule over her. So now there's discord, disharmony in the marital relationship.
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What's the very next sin? It comes right out of the curse. Now, all of man's work is obstructed in the world.
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Rather than effortlessly bringing forth fruit from the field, now there's thorns and thistles, and by the sweat, even by the blood of his hands, man will bring forth bread from the ground.
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What's the next issue of sin? What's the very first sin, as far as the text is concerned, to crop up in the next generation of humanity?
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Well, it's this right here, murder. This is a reflection of sin's depravity, isn't it?
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Destructive to human life. Destructive to the advancement of humanity. Destructive to God's good design.
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Destructive to the giver of life's purpose for mankind. Rather than going in the grain, in the groove, in the purpose of the giver of life, man begins to take life, destroy life.
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Everything's out of whack, as it were. We go on to read that God comes again to confront
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Cain, as He had before, but now after the act. What have you done? Where's your brother?
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It's the word that is meant to keep stinging his conscience. Brother, where's your brother?
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He's so callous and indifferent. Am I my brother's keeper? The word keeper there is shepherd.
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We had read already in Genesis 4 that Abel was a keeper of the sheep. Am I my brother's shepherd?
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I thought you were his shepherd. Since you love shepherds so much, why don't you know where he is? Wasn't he one of your favorite lambs?
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You see how callous and calculated and cold Cain's response is? And God says, the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.
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So now, instead of bearing fruit for the refreshment and delight of mankind, it's as if the blood of man through murder is being force -fed into the ground, and the ground is gurgling as it screams out in protest.
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The whole cosmos is now suffering as a result of sin. Genesis 4 gives us the first malicious cutting down of human life in history.
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God had promised that death would be the wages of sin. This is true in the most profound sense here in Genesis 4.
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And if that doesn't strike you, consider this. The first recorded human death in Scripture is a murder.
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The first human death in Scripture is a murder. Doesn't that speak volumes to the disruption and cruelty of sin?
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What does it look like as this is transmitted across even more generations? It looks like this.
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Listen to my voice, wives of Lamech. Give heed to my speech. I've killed a man for wounding me.
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So now it's the anger and the envy, in fact, even just the smallest slight is enough for a murderer to take up his hand in violence.
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And what do we read of God? He abhors a man of violence. Psalm 10 shows us how man can grow so callous in his murderous intent.
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The wicked in his proud countenance doesn't seek God. God is in none of his thoughts.
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His ways are always prospering. Your judgments, the Lord's judgments are far above Him.
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Far away from His sight. He says in His heart, I won't be moved. I'll never be in adversity.
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My 401k is looking splendid. I don't have any issues with my life. It's no problem that my heart is seething with rage.
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It's no problem that bitterness is a way of life to me. That I burn bridges left and right. That's no issue.
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Things are going well for me. His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, oppression.
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Under His tongue, trouble, iniquity. He sits in lurking places of the village. In the secret places,
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He murders the innocent. In verse 13, why did the wicked renounce God in this way?
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Because of this. He said in His heart, you won't require an account. This is something that I'll never have to answer for.
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This is just what everyone's like. Everyone has issues. Everyone is envious, angry, upset.
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For being just frank, everyone hates someone. And of course, the fundamental rationale is,
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I'll never have to answer. God's ways are so above His thoughts that He has no concern to answer before God.
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Psalm 94, the same thing. They break in pieces your people, O Lord. They slay the widow and the stranger. They murder the fatherless, yet they say, the
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Lord doesn't see. The God of Jacob doesn't understand. Somehow we think there's this little cabinet in our chest where we can have our secret lusts and our secret hatreds, our secret contempt, and somehow that's just our own little domain.
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No one else can really see it, because we know how to put on that southern hospitality smile. What's the sort of way of slighting someone in the
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South? I've heard it say, bless your heart. That's like the ultimate curse, the ultimate vulgarity in the
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Bible belt. Bless your heart, dear. That might come off very saccharine, but the reality is, in the mind and in the secret cabinet of the heart, there's real hatred, jealousy, rage, a certain contempt and bitterness, and we think, the
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Lord doesn't see. God doesn't understand. This won't be weighed against me.
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This doesn't count. After all, I smiled and I spoke kindly. I've even treated them better than they deserve.
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So I don't have to give an account. But of course, Scripture says every careless word, every thought and intention of the heart, all of this is open before God.
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You might as well have spoken. You might as well have acted out on it. That's how you'll be judged. God does see.
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As clear as the blood in the field cries out to Him, all the bitterness in your life cries out to Him. And so the sixth commandment teaches us to have a true, profound regard for life.
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Not just for the immediate physical well -being, but a regard for one's welfare, for one's honor, for one's good.
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The sixth commandment teaches us to have a regard for life. So second point here.
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This first point was sort of an overview. Murder from the beginning. Second point. Regarding life.
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Again, Genesis 9. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.
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That is the foundation for this command. You shall not murder. By the way, we sort of read past it.
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We even read, even from the beast I will require it. Does that not strike you?
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Even from the beast I will require it. Does not that show that man is the crown of God's creation?
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He's not the end of a chain of evolutionary development? He's made unlike all of the other animals because He alone is made in the image of God.
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This used to be obvious to every civilization on the history of the earth. Then we became so wise in our own sight that we became fools.
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I require your lifeblood from every man, even from the beasts. Exodus 21 actually spells this out.
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If an animal slays a man, if an ox gores a man, that ox is to be stoned in the assembly like an idolater, like a blasphemer.
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It's to be put to death in the most public and personal way. It's a public execution.
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We have some vestige of that when a pit bull gets off its chain and attacks someone.
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What do they do to that animal? They put it down. It's a man -slaying beast.
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We have some vestige of biblical law in that practice. This whole perspective, by the way, is vital if we are to have a regard for life as we live in a culture of death.
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And we're living in a culture of death. We're living in a culture that relativizes all forms of life and sees human life as really indistinguishable in value from any other form of life.
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In fact, environmentalists seem to have an extinction fetish for the human race. Wouldn't it be better if sea cucumbers could dwell unencumbered by humanity?
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Wouldn't it be better for human beings to die so that kudzu could grow unencumbered?
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It's like, what are you talking about? Some animal activist would honestly delight to see human beings die if it would save animal life.
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Of course, we need to regard animal life. Scripture says, blessed is the man that regards the life of his beast.
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My wife hates our cat. I remind her of this verse constantly. I say,
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I'm a blessed man when Ralph is on my lap. I'm a blessed man as I regard the life of my beast.
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But this regard for life, it has a trickle effect. We need to appreciate all that God has made.
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It's something you don't have to teach a child to do. They're amazed. It's something that we end up getting desensitized to and sort of calloused to when in fact we're meant to be in awe of the vibrant diversity of God's creation.
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And then we're to steward it wisely. In my experience, by the way, hunters and sportsmen, even those who actually hunt for sport, the sort of trope against them, the charge against them is they have no regard for animal life.
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That's almost always opposite to the case. When they see an animal needlessly suffering, you can see they're very stressed and concerned that that animal's not needlessly suffering.
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They have a certain respect for wildlife. And so they're not going out of the way to sort of torture the animal, as it were, but they have a right understanding these animals were made for the benefit of man, for the use of man and the contours of man being a steward of creation, exercising dominion over it.
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I was speaking, we had some people over earlier in the week, and I was sharing some stories along these lines because I think
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I was just bambified growing up. So I could probably put a brave exterior on. For some reason, pigs are the only exception to this.
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I could go in a helicopter and shoot pigs with an AR and be as happy as a clam. I don't know why.
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I have no sympathy for swine. But, you know, even if I was out, maybe some of you guys would invite me to go hunting some fall season,
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I'm probably going to be turning green by the time we put that deer down. It's going to be like, all right, let's make this kind of quick.
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I think I need to steal my resolve. I remember my dad one year, a mourning dove flew into our window and it injured its wing.
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My dad built this little cage and nursed it back to health and we released it. So from that moment on, I thought, my dad's
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Dr. Doolittle. This is amazing. We're going to now care for all the critters in the yards of Leominster.
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And sure enough, I was walking home from school not long after that, and a squirrel had been hit by a car. And as I was walking by it, it was sort of mangled and gasping for air.
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And immediately I ran to my dad. You know, we got another patient, Dad. He was rather in the middle of work.
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And he's humoring me. He's got his latex gloves on because he was a dental technician. He's walking to the sidewalk, just wants to get back to his job.
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He doesn't communicate this. So I'm thinking, this is amazing. I wonder if you can make a little bottle of milk.
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Maybe the squirrel would... You know, I'm thinking 10 steps ahead. My dad's thinking, this poor thing, I need to suffocate it and put it out of its misery.
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So my dad scoops it up, and I'm just beaming with joy. And then I watch his fingers go around the neck, and his body go limp, and my eyes are like black with terror as we head home.
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Well, we're on a tangent now. But let me say, if we would have care and compassion on any given animal, how much more should we have on a human being?
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Why is it? I don't think we should allow whale species to go extinct.
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But you see, some of these activists did rather drown the sailors and save the whales.
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There's something satanic about that. If we have regard for human life, it will trickle down into the compassion and stewardship we show toward all other forms of life.
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And yet we have an utmost, a completely transcendent regard for all of human life.
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There is an inherent dignity and value to man, because man alone is made in the image of God.
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Cornelius Van Tove, I've just been diving into now that I know he wrote on the Ten Commandments. He says, for a truly biblical conception of man, we must keep in mind these factors.
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In other words, keep in mind the biblical story. It's everything we've seen between Genesis 3 and 4. For a truly biblical conception of man, we must keep in mind these factors.
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First, his original dignity as a creation of God. Not just any creation.
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The express, the supreme creation of God. Secondly, his ethical defection from God.
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So all that man was intended to be and how in rebellion now he is the very opposite of that.
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Now all his ways are darkened. His understanding is rebellious. Now his actions are full of evil intent.
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There's been an ethical defection from God, but then, praise God, his restoration in the grace of God.
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His restoration in Christ. And when a Christian fully recognizes these things, Van Tove says, he will be saved from two extremes.
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On the one hand, self -glorification. On the other hand, self -abasement.
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That is profound. When you understand who we were as God intended us to be, who we are as a result of the fall into sin, and then who we are restored to be in Christ, on the one hand, it will spare you from glorifying yourself.
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Nothing I do is wrong. Everything I do is okay. We're going to make things after our own image.
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We're going to live life in our own way. The sort of self -glorification, self -rule, self -referentiality.
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But then on the other hand, self -abasement. Say, my life doesn't matter. So what if people die?
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That's just the way things go. Cogs in the wheel. In the machinery of life. Neither is there this abasement or denigration to life.
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And we're seeing in our day, the constant seesaw of these two extremes always played out. On the one hand, self -glorification.
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The pride of man. This is especially in the sort of bioengineering and medical fields.
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If we can do it, we must do it. Elective surgery? Of course. People that they want to be handicapped.
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So they'll go to doctors that are under the Hippocratic Oath and say, will you please maim me? Will you please remove my perfectly functioning organs?
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So on the one hand, self -glorification in the most depraved forms, but also then self -abasement. Do we not see in this onslaught of global media how desensitized we've become to violence?
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Is that not reflected in the entertainment that has an ever -increasing and yet never -satiated appetite for gore and sensuality?
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It's terrifying to think of what this is producing. As far as the moral ethos of the next generation.
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They're unmoved to see the most gorious details. Does it not astound you that it was a scandal that had to develop within the
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FCC for Elvis to move his hips? We laugh at that now.
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That was something serious. Now is there any form of evil that's not broadcast for the youngest minds to see?
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How do we have regard for life in a culture of death? Let's consider some of the areas that this commandment touches upon.
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Part of having regard for life in a culture of death is understanding what the Sixth Commandment requires and also what it does not require.
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So let's talk about first defense. Defense. You shall not murder does not prohibit nations from entering into armed conflict in order to protect citizens from outside aggressors.
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There's more caveats that apply to this. We're not going to spend the rest of the morning looking at just war theory but that's a legitimate category of Christian ethical practice.
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There is such a thing as just war in a fallen world. Sorry to disappoint our Mennonite and Quaker friends.
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They sort of have an over realized eschatology. They want the lion and the lamb to lay down together now.
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But it is not so. Wars and rumors of wars these things shall be. They must be so.
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So there is a place for the taking of life in armed conflict between two nations.
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That doesn't mean every war is just. This is only for lawful wars.
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Those that meet the threshold that I think the church has wisely held to since it was largely developed by Augustine.
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Again, see how many roads lead back to him. Neither does it forbid law enforcement from defending their own life or using deadly force when it's necessary to protect other life.
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Not only for law enforcement but for anyone. To defend his own life, to defend the life of his loved ones or of his neighbor.
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And so there's a legitimacy to self defense that's established by God himself. Exodus 21 lays out the details of this.
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But I want to give as a caveat to a room that I know we have a lot of concealed carry guys in here. If someone were ever to bust down the door we're more of a threat to one another than whoever comes in is most likely.
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How good is your aim? We should always stand on the fact that self defense is lawful when it is necessary.
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And I want to punctuate that word necessary. In other words, it's always a last resort to send someone into immortality.
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To stand before God, the dread judge of all. That's no small thing. And we shouldn't be Wyatt Earp going around the house daydreaming about someone breaking in.
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There's a problem, a dysfunction. You're not understanding this command and this regard for life rightly if husbands, you're in the bedroom at night and you hear what sounds like the crackling of a window and you smile.
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That's a problem. If you're like, finally. I've been waiting for this day. No, it's the last resort.
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It's the last thing you want to do. It's not they were 30 yards away and running away and I just thought
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I would practice my aim. No. Jesus says, the first thing he says to Peter is put your sword back in its sheath.
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He doesn't say throw out your sword. He says put it back in your sheath. You probably need it later. But for now put it back in the sheath.
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He said, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. God abhors a violent man.
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Don't go to the gas station at 1am and daydream about getting an encounter. Don't daydream about being on the
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CCTV camera. Don't go in like the sheriff and size people up.
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We need to have a regard for human life in a culture of death. Secondly, this is of course always a sort of tender consideration, is suicide.
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Suicide. You shall not murder. It does apply to even yourself.
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You shall not murder even your own self. Human life is to be preserved not because each person possesses some absolute right of ownership over their own person.
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That's the fundamental political assertion of libertarianism. You have an absolute sovereignty over your person.
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Christians don't believe that. You belong to God. That is why suicide is not permitted.
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It's under the sixth commandment as something prohibited by God. God is the absolute owner of humanity.
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Our lives are His prerogative. We sing it in the old hundredth. Know ye that the
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Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us, not we ourselves. We didn't make ourselves, neither can we take ourselves.
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It's sad. You look at Japan and you see the plummeting birth rate. You see what decades of the export of American secularism to that nation has done.
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And unlike many other Asian nations where Christianity has never taken root, not for long.
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And you see that the suicide rate among young men is one of the highest in the world.
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It's tragic. They have certain places in Tokyo where the parks or certain forests where this is just where you go in a tent to commit suicide.
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How do you have regard for life in a culture of death? That I, you know,
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I've come to this place now, the last straw, and now I'll take my own life. As if that's your right.
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It is not. Regard for life in a culture of death.
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How does that touch on abortion? You'll notice in this command you shall not murder is not limited to some later stage of human development.
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He does not say you shall not murder at this point. You shall not murder until. It simply says you shall not murder.
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In fact, there's no direct object here in the Hebrew. You shall not murder. Full stop. There's no specification of who is not to be murdered.
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It simply says you shall not murder. So in other words, all human life at any stage of development is in scope here.
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All human life is to be considered intrinsically dignified because all human life is made in the image of God.
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From the moment a human is being formed in the womb, from the moment of conception, all that is needed for that humanity to come to its full potential is there.
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We see there's been this viral show. I don't watch these shows but I always see clips of them and some clips went viral.
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This young man, I believe his name was Tanner. I think that was right. You could tell he's extremely autistic.
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He's got just this joy that is enviable. The show is called
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Love on the Spectrum. It's about people that struggle with disorders on the spectrum struggling to build these relationships.
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Tanner is going out on this date and this lovely lady with downs across from him and he just can't stop talking.
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Man after my own heart. He's sitting there bubbling away. He's like, so what kind of man are you looking for?
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Okay, well for me I'm looking for a Christian and he's going on. You can tell he's been raised in this way and it's really wonderful. If you look at the comments under some of these clips, everyone just says oh if only the world could be full of Tanners.
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Wouldn't it be amazing to have someone like Tanner in your life? Wouldn't you give anything to have him in your life? Do you not see the hypocrisy of that?
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When they're 30 and they're a blessing and they're teaching you and showing you the sort of childlike simplicity of love and honesty and a general desire for the good of the people around you and you just realize oh,
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I'm really dirty. I have evil intents. I could really learn a lot. What a blessing it is to know someone like this.
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And we live in a society that if you get scandally enough they say abort it. Abort all the
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Tanners. Abort these lives that are just going to be a burden on you and on society.
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These are undesirable. There's a complete hypocrisy that a show like this could be viral in a society where we denigrate life that we deem as a society unworthy.
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The hypocrisy, the contrast of having a regard for human life in this culture of death.
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When God is removed as the source and end of human life human society dictates for itself who counts and who doesn't.
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This is not some hypothetical venture. This is how history plays out time and time again.
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Genocidal acts. Acts of eugenics being inflicted upon people simply because they're not counted as people.
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They haven't earned the cut. They won't contribute. They won't be productive. The Christian understands all humanity is made in the image of God.
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All humanity therefore has this status and if their blood is shed
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God will avenge them. He avenges his own image no matter how disregarded marginalized, held in contempt that image may be by society.
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By the way, we're having a second round of the Luncheon for Life in June. June 22nd and we're hoping it'll be a little bit bigger and more public.
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These are the kind of things we want to stand out and speak and inform and persuade people's conscience.
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Part of having a regard for life in a culture of death. This is very closely related to euthanasia.
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Another point or what's sometimes called assisted suicide. Euthanasia. You shall not murder reminds us that the
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Lord is sovereign over human life. Increasingly today, you can go north of the border, go to Canada and see the statistics right now on euthanasia.
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It's terrifying. It's dystopian and it's unsurprising coming from Trudeau and the policies that his cabinet has enacted.
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You shall not murder reminds us the Lord is sovereign over human life. Advocates call this mercy killing.
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Drop the mercy, it's just killing. It's murder. And it's forbidden by God. The argument goes, well those who have a low quality of life or for reasons mentioned above are suffering or struggling in any way rather than trying to ameliorate their pain, trying to alleviate as much of their suffering as possible, but allow the giver of life to be the one that takes their life in the natural process.
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The man would intervene and kill. I remember growing up, Jack Kevorkian.
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Do you remember all the headlines of Jack Kevorkian? This was a time when our society accepted that this was murder. In fact,
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Dr. Kevorkian was called Dr. Death and he was convicted of second degree murder. But now governments are happy to assist you killing yourself.
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They create the clinics and the programs and the counselors. They have the whole apparatus to do so. In the
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Netherlands I was reading a 29 -year -old woman named Aurelia Brewers.
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And this was interesting because it wasn't some physical malady. It was actually psychological. She said, I've always been so unhappy and therefore
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I want to be approved to kill myself. Her doctors wouldn't do it. So she went to the, what's called the end of life clinic in Dutch, Levin -Synding
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Clinic. She went there and basically said, I want to end my life. I've never been happy.
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So this is the last resort. When you're GP, when your clinicians deny you euthanasia, you can go here.
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This year alone they've overseen 65 out of 83 deaths approved on psychiatric grounds.
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And this is what one of the doctors, Kit Van Mechelen, a psychiatrist who actually performs euthanasia, this is what she said of Aurelia Brewers.
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The patients that we see are often younger than others. In other words, the psychiatric patients are often very young.
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Aurelia's an example of a very young woman and it makes it harder to make the decision because in these cases you're taking away so much life.
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Read between the lines in what they're saying. Right? This is a hard decision for us because we're taking away a lot of life.
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What's the converse of that? It's a really easy decision when you're not taking away as much life. The sliding scale of value in a secular society.
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Oh, they've only got 30 years left. Tops. We'll kill them. We'll kill them. Oh, this one's tricky.
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She could live another 60 years. But we'll still kill her. She's unhappy. Of course we're going to kill her.
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The Bible doesn't scale the value of life in this way. What the Bible does is affirm all humanity is made in the image of God.
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Therefore, if you shed that blood, no matter how clinicized, no matter how sterile the environment, no matter how done by the sort of intellectual apparati of the
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Dutch culture, God will avenge. That's what it looks like to have a regard for life in a culture of death.
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And then lastly, capital punishment. Capital punishment. You shall not murder directs individual men to the temporal justice of the state.
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You shall not murder directs individual men to the temporal justice of the state.
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Under no circumstances does the Bible allow vigilantism. The civil magistrate bears the calling of God to preserve life by executing murderers.
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So the sixth commandment has sometimes been used by advocates to overthrow capital punishment.
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They say, if the heart of the commandment is to preserve life, then there should be no more capital punishment. Romans 13 makes it clear one of the ways the magistrate preserves life is by taking away the life of the murderer.
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This is what God has required. If a man's blood is shed by man, then by man the offender's blood shall be shed.
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In this way, the magistrate is not bearing a sword in vain. Now sadly, this has fallen out of favor with Christianity.
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Van Til makes this point. It is a false humanitarianism I love that.
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False humanitarianism that seeks to substitute the idea of improvement over punishment.
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The heart is we're just going to improve the murderer rather than punish the murderer. Punishment must always remain the primary concept because the justice of God is outraged when a human life is taken.
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Why? Because human life is made in the image of God. And so the justice of God demands capital punishment.
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No amount of sentimentality can remove this divine command. Not even utilitarian reasons or the consideration that time for repentance should be given.
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God will take care of all of these things if we see fit to only obey His command. It is an indication,
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Van Til says, that the Christian consciousness is not genuinely Christian when we seek to overthrow capital punishment.
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It's locked in step with this disregard for human life, even under the guise of seeking to honor human life.
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In God's purpose, in God's instruction, human life and the dignity of human life is best preserved and best displayed when murderers are executed by the state.
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The Bible does not look at capital punishment as something that denigrates life, in other words, but actually something that upholds it.
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And by the way, this was something that was not detached from the community. When you look at how a death sentence was to be carried out in Israel, of course, in the
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Mosaic economy, it was something incredibly personal to the community. Now we sort of cordon them off to some unknown location only to be seen by a sort of anonymous executioner pressing buttons.
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Maybe the immediate family is outside of a Plexiglas window. What God required was that all of the tribes partake in the death sentence.
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Logistically, that almost certainly meant representatives of the tribes and the heads of households, as it were, would take part, and they would all take up stones, beginning first with the family of the victim.
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It was personal. It was eye for an eye. It was, you took our son, our daughter's wife, away from us, and now we take away yours.
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And that, God said, would uphold the dignity of life. That would sober everyone's understanding to the gravity of the sixth commandment.
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The magistrate is armed with a sword. What did Thomas Watson say? It's rusting in the scabbard. Now the civil magistrate refuses to wield the sword.
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Instead, it allows it to rust, and it tries to rehabilitate murderers. Some of us were, on a
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Sunday morning just like this in 2016, in the beauty of a spring morning, had no idea that, however many hundreds of yards away,
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Vanessa Marcote was being murdered. And what did our state do?
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What did the state of Massachusetts do to that murderer? To that evil man? They gave him a sentence to life, eligible for parole after 40 years.
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He should have been killed. Angelo Colon Ortiz should be dead.
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There's no question about it. He shed the blood of Vanessa Marcote.
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God requires that his blood be shed. That does not mean that there's no mercy.
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In fact, that's a high time for mercy. Murderers can be saved on death row, as we'll see in a moment.
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A murderer is saved on the cross next to Jesus. But he still has to die.
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And God's justice requires nothing less. We're living right now in a land where murderers are spared and unborn children are slaughtered.
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There is something upside down about the value of life in this culture of death. And we as Christians need to, on the one hand, be the voice for the voiceless.
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Their blood cries out to God. Their blood defiles our land and warrants God's judgment. On the other hand, we need to be a voice against the offender and say,
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Magistrate, take up that sword, lest it fall upon you. It was rightly said.
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I can't remember if it was Watson or someone else. A judge who is lenient to a murderer that goes on to commit another five murderers is now guilty of five murders.
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He should have executed him after the first one. Regard for life in a culture of death.
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And then, really, this deals with the heart of the command, as we see. So these are sort of the larger building blocks of application for the sixth command.
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But as Christians, informed, as it were, by Matthew chapter 5, we know we have to deal with the heart of the command.
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And so going even deeper, I trust you're probably amening and saying, yes, yes, amen, to most of the points.
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I hope all of the points I just laid out. Well, here's the point, as Bockham would say, if you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch.
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Murder is the lashing out at God's image. 1
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John 3 Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God.
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Nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother.
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So this first murder, Cain's murder of Abel becomes, as it were, the paradigm for John of what hatred for brother looks like.
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Not just what it looks like, but what it leads to. That's the point. What it leads to.
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In other words, there is a satanic footprint in every act, however slight, however flattered in your own estimation, there is a satanic footprint in every act of envy and anger.
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And if left unchecked, if left unrestrained, it would eventuate into the same callous murder that Cain committed.
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Jesus is simply saying the same thing in John 8. Alright, so, 1
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John 3, he says, we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and therefore, as it were, murdered his brother.
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What does Jesus say in John 8? When the scribes and the leaders are seeking to kill him, to murder him.
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And he says, I know you're Abraham's descendants, you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you.
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This is what they say to him, verse 41 in John 8. We weren't born of fornication, we have one father,
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God. They're insulting him. Yeah, we've heard the rumors around town. We actually know who our father is.
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Jesus says, if God were your father, you'd love me. Because I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have
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I come of myself, but He sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? I'll tell you why. Because you're not able to listen to my word.
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And why is that? Because you're of your father. The devil. And the desires of your father you want to do.
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He was a murderer from the beginning. You see how this is all held up? There's this antithesis that Jesus is pointing to, and John takes it up in 1
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John 3. It's one of the most chilling insights into sinful desire, isn't it? The antithesis between love and hate is parallel to being children of God and children of Satan.
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To love is what a child of God does. To love is what proves that we are children of God.
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To hate is what a child of Satan does. That's the desire of Satan. He was a murderer from the beginning.
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And therefore Cain, who was of the evil one, murders his brother. And all hatred eventuates to murder of the brother.
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So see hatred for what it is here. Don't flatter it and say this is something common to man.
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No. Man is divided between children of God and children of Satan. Those who love are born of God.
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Those who hate are children of Satan. See hatred for what it is.
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See the importance of bearing your heart before the Lord. Brothers and sisters, sin is crouching at the door.
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Its desire is for you. You must rule over it. John Kuritz says so well, it's the hand that gives birth to murder, but it's the heart infected with hate and anger that conceives it.
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So murder is more than just a physical act. 1 John 3 .15 tells us that everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
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And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So everyone who hates is a murderer.
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No murderer has eternal life because all murderers have the desire of their father who is the devil.
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He was the murderer from the beginning. He sought to destroy out of hatred the image of God in the
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Garden of Eden. Now his children hate the image of God to the left and to the right. Malice, envy, bitterness, spite.
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That's what they breed and seed. God in His mercy to the world restrains them, but don't mistake the seed of potential in the heart.
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Their desire is to do the work of their father. Do you know your hearts? God looks upon the hearts.
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God sees as plain as day with 20 -20 vision what we harbor in our hearts for another.
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We don't want to see the satanic footprint. We don't want to trace it all the way to murder, but what is in only thought would become act and God sees no difference.
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For He looks upon the heart. So for Christians, we're always dealing with the heart of the command.
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We're always dealing with the heart of the command. Van Til says, only a Christian respects and preserves and develops his own life for the sake of God and for this reason, only a
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Christian can truly love his neighbor. Since his neighbor must also be loved for the sake of God, right?
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We can't divide the second table from the first table. This is essentially what Paul says in Romans 3.
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You shall not murder, along with the other commands of the second table, is summed up in this saying. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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Everyone who loves is born of God. Only those who are born of God can love. Only those who have been regenerated by God and are walking in accordance to His Spirit can actually fulfill the righteous demands of the law.
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You shall not murder is summed up in this saying. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor.
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And that's why love is the fulfillment of the law. Now if you're feeling discouraged, I would remind you the man who's writing this to the church at Rome, according to Acts 9, was once breathing murder against Christians.
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Not just plotting it, Luke says he was breathing murder. In other words, he woke up and,
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I can't wait to destroy, I can't wait to murder, I can't wait to persecute. Then he went to bed dreaming about it for the next morning.
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This is who he was until Christ intervened in his life. And now he's the one saying, this is summed up, we must love our neighbor as ourselves.
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We must fulfill the law. So Christian, do you know your hearts?
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As Christians we put away gossip and quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, faction, slander, gossip, arrogance.
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We recognize that these toxic, foul seeds grow in the soil of all of our good intentions.
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I think Cain had a right intention when he brought his offering to the altar. It's tragic to see the tailspin of the downfall that happened as a result of the envy he had, the anger he had toward Abel.
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Isn't it amazing? Sinful actions always begin with sinful thoughts.
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Most of us think, of course, we're incapable of murdering someone but the reality is apart from God's grace, apart from His restraints, even upon unregenerate man, those sinful actions would be occurring all of the time, all around us, without cessation.
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When you don't deal with bitterness and anger in your life, you're only feeding the root that bears that kind of fruit.
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We have more law enforcement and forensic criminology and CCTV and satellite footage and all these things and still there's so much murder and violence.
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You think back to times in society where they had none of these things. Don't you see God's restraint upon the murderous intent of fallen men?
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You've heard of the so -called policeman on the corner argument. The idea is if someone pleads temporary insanity for a crime they've done, if they would have done it, in other words, if they took steps to hide the crime, then they couldn't claim temporary insanity.
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If there was a policeman on the corner and they would avoid or dodge, then they recognize there's a consequence and I'm not supposed to be doing this.
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That is essentially the biggest restraint for us, that we have the ultimate policeman on the corner, don't we?
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The ultimate policeman on the corner. But even that sometimes doesn't slow down our thought.
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It may slow down our hands and our feet. It might for a moment muzzle our mouth, but it rarely impacts our thinking and our heart, doesn't it?
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Do you know your heart? Do you know what envy and hatred and contempt and jealousy produce in your life?
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Do you know that the wrath of man never produces the righteousness of God? Do you know what
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Zechariah 8 says when he forbids imagining evil of your neighbors? Imagining evil of your neighbors.
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How do you read text messages? I always try to read them charitably, because text messages just always come across rude, right?
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And we drown them with emojis to try to be like, I'm happy as I'm saying this, because otherwise you're just like, wow, thanks.
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Wow, what a piece of work. I can't believe he wrote that to me. Do we imagine evil, or do we seek out the good?
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Do we imagine evil? We just think, you know, I didn't deserve, you know, they have slighted me.
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You know, that comment, I can't believe they would, you know, they must think this. Oh, if only they knew, right?
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Do we work ourselves up into this frenzy, and do we not recognize that that's the Cainite legacy pumping within our breast?
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According to Jesus, from within, out of the heart of man produces evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, the list goes on.
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From the heart of man, filling the mind, from the sin nature, flooding the thoughts, do we imagine evil of our neighbor?
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Have you learned to know your heart? I pray that God has big things for this congregation.
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As we keep scaling and branching out in new ways. Perhaps we're taking, however small these baby steps are, they're genuine baby steps toward more engagement on things that really do matter in this community.
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And I know for a fact if we're in that way, if we're in that fight, if we're bearing that kind of salt and light, that the enemy is going to be working overtime to disrupt and disrail all of that effort, all of that endeavor, all of that desire.
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And I know the way he's going to do it. I don't think it's going to be a lot of opposition from without.
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That may be, but that would only spur us on, frankly. Sometimes you lose heart because there is no opposition.
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You don't feel like you're making any difference. It's going to be opposition within.
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It's going to be hatred and envy and malice and spite and contempt and bitterness within.
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I pray every single time I pray that God would keep us humble and united as a church.
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Every time. I can't remember the last time I haven't prayed that. Because I know that that is Satan's chief objective.
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And that means in my careless imagination, in my egotistical knee -jerk reaction to perceived slight,
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I may be opening the gate for Satan's destruction in this congregation. I may be sowing the seed of our demise because I don't know my own heart and I don't love my neighbor as God requires.
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You shall not murder. David in Psalm 57, he speaks of men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongue is like a sword.
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Imagine going to the dentist like that, right? You can't even put your fingers in the mouth. It gets all mangled and caught up.
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What are spears and arrows and swords? They're tools of war. And what does James warn the congregation?
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Where do wars and fights come from among you? Don't they come from your desire for pleasure? That you war in your members?
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You lust, you don't have, you murder, you covet, you don't obtain, you fight and you war. You notice he's used the word war three times.
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A good Hebraist, he knows how to emphasize war, war, war. This is the preeminent danger for our congregation if we're going to be used of God.
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I hope you know your own heart. I hope you recognize sin is always crouching at the door.
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It wants to sift you like weed. That temptation to sort of vindicate yourself.
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To not think of the best, even in defiance of bald facts. But to just feed the worst and feed that jealousy, that contempt, that bitterness.
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That you're becoming like Satan himself. Marring and maligning the image of God. And James says wars and fights among you.
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Wars and fights in your members. Wars and fights. War. Huh.
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What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. We don't want war in this congregation.
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We want to remove the teeth that look like swords and arrows. The tongue that's like a sword.
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We put away gossip. We put away quarreling. There's no place for jealousy. There ought not to be any outburst of anger.
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No factions that form in fellowship. No slander. No arrogance. No form of disorder.
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These are the ways that war breaks out. You see the footage last night of Iranian drones heading into Jerusalem.
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Look at the congregation and look at all the rows herein. Just see drone warfare emerging from our own thoughts and intents.
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Christians are to love one another. We're to love our neighbor as ourself. But even more so as a Christian, you are to love other
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Christians in a unique way. In a transcendent way that's beyond your love for any other neighbor.
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It's the love of the brethren that is constantly distinguished from love to all other men.
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Because love for the brethren is the only love that endures eternally. In other words, your love for your neighbor, your love for unregenerate, rebellious men, your love for those who hate
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God will dissipate. Will be gone on the day of judgment when their hatred for God is fully seen.
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It's fully exposed. Whatever love you've born for them in this life, that love will cease when you see sin for what it is.
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Rebellion for what it is. Hatred of God for what it is. And when you're seeing God as who He truly is.
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In all of His glory. In all of His wonder. You won't have to try to oh how am I ever going to stop loving you?
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It's going to be an immediate get away from me. And yet the love between brethren will endure from that point forward eternally.
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So Christian love is a higher form of love. In fact, we know we've passed from death to life because we love the brethren.
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It is impossible for you to be a Christian and not love the brethren. If that's not too fine a point,
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John goes on to say if you don't love your brother, you're abiding in death. Don't pretend you have some claim on eternal life.
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If you hate a brother, if you have some disregard, some contempt, some soreness toward a brother or a sister in this room this morning, don't pretend.
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You have some claim on eternal life. You're abiding in death. It cannot be that you have a sustained hatred for your brother and name the name of Christ.
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You're being led by His Spirit. These things cannot be. Ultimately, if the
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Spirit has His way with you, that sin will torment you until it's confessed. Until it's purged from your life.
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If you're not loving your brother, you are abiding in death. Therefore, I plead with you. Let us pursue those things that make for peace by which we may edify one another.
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To seek peace. To not be envious but to be meek. To rejoice in one another's good. To not try to vindicate ourselves but show mercy.
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At every turn, to be kind. Never to have a sour face or a bitter thought but to endure even the worst insults patiently.
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This befits a child of God. Anything less befits a child of Satan.
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But I close with this. There is great hope for the murderers in this room. Praise God for that.
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We read in Mark 15 that when Jesus was arrested, Pilate had the option, as he made a custom, the governor had the option to release a prisoner.
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Of course, the crowd cried out for Barabbas. And we read in Mark 15,
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Barabbas was chained with his fellow rebels. They had committed murder in the rebellion. So Barabbas, the murderer, is released.
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Sounds like Massachusetts, doesn't it? Release the murderer. But these other criminals, they had committed murder too.
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So we say thieves, robbers. More proper would be like a rogue or a rebel.
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It's a more formal use of the term. These weren't pickpockets that were being executed by crucifixion. These were in the eyes of the
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Roman Empire, rogues, rebels. In fact, they murdered in their rebellion.
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And so Jesus is hung on the cross between two murderers. An old Dutchman, a great preacher, not a household name.
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In fact, he had some throat condition. He couldn't preach the last decades of his life, but he wrote sermons.
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And I think God made his ministry even more fruitful for that reason as he got wide distribution. And he wrote of this, none of you, this is
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Gisbertus van Rienen, none of you, whoever you may be, whatever you may have done, none of you may say, my sin is too great to be forgiven.
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No one can say that. Even though he should die.
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Angelo Colon Ortiz couldn't say that. Does that not astound you?
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That's astounding. None of you, whoever you may be, whatever you may have done, can say, my sin is too great to be forgiven.
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For there is forgiveness in the blood of him who is willing to live, willing to suffer, willing to die, even for murderers.
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Even hanging on the cross at the gates of death, these murderers were reviling
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Jesus, but Jesus was sending a high priestly prayer to heaven saying, Father, forgive.
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And the Father, who though the sky was still black, was still receiving the prayers of the beloved
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Son, answered that prayer and sent His Spirit into one of these murderers. And that reviling tongue, that sword -like tongue, that murderous intent, even as He was losing
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His life, it was cut off. And now He began to recognize His own sin.
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Now He began to recognize, I'm bearing what I deserve. Be quiet, He says to the other man. We're getting what we deserve.
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Now He sees Jesus as the only one who's not getting what He deserves. This man has done nothing.
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And so in the light that He sees His own sin, the justice that is demanded, He also recognizes the mercy of the one who's being crucified next to Him.
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These things have not been revealed by flesh and blood. These things were revealed by the Father in heaven. Amen? And even to the thief on the cross who has no conception.
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There's no Roman's road. You know, Jeff Durbin doesn't show up at the foot to teach him, right?
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This is all spontaneous revelation of salvation. And He looks to the one that moments before had been reviling and He says,
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Lord, remember me. Remember me. He's pleading for mercy.
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He's sort of testing the waters. Jesus goes far more.
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He doesn't say, I'll never forget you. He doesn't say, I will remember you. Even through the agony on the tree, through blood stained teeth,
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He says, you'll be with me in paradise today. What rich grace is there in Christ that He would give paradise to a murderer?
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Is there any sin that you have done that His blood is not richer and does not speak better things?
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Better things in the blood of Abel. Samuel Crosman, I mentioned this hymn a few weeks ago.
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I love this hymn. My song is Love Unknown. I didn't use these stanzas. Sometimes they strew
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His way, speaking of the crowds as Jesus is being led to His death. Sometimes they strew
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His way and His sweet praises sing, resounding all the day, hosannas to their king, right?
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Laying down the palm branches as He comes in on the colt of the donkey. But then what happens at the end of the week?
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Crucifies all their breath. And for His death they thirst and they cry.
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Do you see how fickle the heart is? Do you know your heart? Do you see how you can bless and love like some fresh spring, a brother or sister one week, and then like some brackish water curse and hold them in contempt the next?
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They rise and needs will have my dear Lord taken away. A murderer they save.
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The prince of life they slay. They give life to the one who's taken life.
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And the one who created life, who sustains life, who is life, they kill. But cheerful He to suffering goes that He His foes from thence might free.
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Now, maybe you're not familiar with the syntax, but this is what He's saying. Cheerfully He goes to that suffering in order to free those murderers from suffering.
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Cheerful He goes to suffering from thence, from that suffering, His foes,
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His enemies He might free. What rich grace is there in Christ Jesus?
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Do you have any doubt? What prevents you from coming to Him? Is there any thought?
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He could never accept me. I could never maintain. I know that I know that God requires so much.
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He could never I could never maintain it. I couldn't do it. Sitting with Adam this past week in the hospital room.
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And Marie I think was asking the question, what is it that you want to wait? Why would you want to wait?
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Well, I like to gamble. Because it's hard. It requires a lot.
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I have to somehow maintain all these demands on my life. How am I going to maintain? This is the gospel of God's free grace in the person and work of Christ Jesus.
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It does not matter what you have done. It does not matter how loudly your sins may shout and scream and torment you and your conscience.
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As an old Puritan said, I hope they will have a voice. And you'll hear that voice and hate them in the future.
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But however loudly your sins may speak, they can never speak as loudly as the blood of Jesus. So our mediator enters the thick darkness of death, overcomes the last enemy, triumphantly ascends on high, and with such confidence now, all who come to him, having taken all of their offense, all the gravitude, even the murder that they've committed, they look to him and say, remember us,
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Lord. And he says, you'll be with me. The day is coming where you'll be with me.
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In this great confidence, we look for a city whose builder and maker is God. And isn't that what the sixth commandment ultimately points us to, right?
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We've said, every commandment has an eschatological lining, something that orients us to our great hope.
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How does the sixth commandment do that? It's sort of the opposite of Isaiah 1. In Isaiah 1, we sort of have this city that is full of harlotry and murder and injustice.
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Well, what's the city that God is building the day that it will be revealed? It's the city of the prince of life, the prince of peace.
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On that day, the world will be free of all hatred, all malice, all anger, all murder. No more death.
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Our life, our livelihood, our happiness will be preserved forever. Which means, in the meantime, this commandment, at its very heart, at its very core, reminds us that the
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Father is drawing those to the Son who will be witnesses. This life in the Spirit, after we've been born in the
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Spirit, witnesses that we will not murder. Therefore, we will love our neighbor as ourselves. Therefore, we have an above all love for the brethren.
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Witnesses that we seek to give life, to preserve life, to spread life rather than take life, destroy life, or obstruct life.
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It's all because of the Lord and the Savior, Jesus Christ. He says, and I close with this,
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I am He that lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.
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Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Amen. Father, thank
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You for Your Word. Lord, teach us to hide this commandment in our hearts,
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Lord, in such a way that we would know our hearts. Let this be the true north of our walk,
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Lord, that we would learn to love as our Savior has loved. Lord, that where we have fallen so far short,
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His rich blood would not only cleanse us, as the hymn says, but be of sin its double cure to cleanse us from its guilt and its power.
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May the murderous sin of envy and hatred have no power in our lives, in our thoughts, in our imagination, in our speech, in our regard, in our action,
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Lord. Make us by Your Spirit doers of this, not hearers only, we ask in Your Son's name.