6th Commandment — Law Homilies

Now this week, as we would come before the law of God, as we do each week, we are, we find ourselves at the sixth commandment found in Exodus chapter 20 at verse 13.

Hear the word of the Lord. Thou shalt not kill. Again, Exodus chapter 20, verse 13, the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill.

Now, while our excuses for disobedience when it comes to sin and God's commands tend to be many, the command here is quite short.

We live in a culture that talks loudly about justice, and yet it despises the holy thing that God calls justice, and we live with hearts that will condemn murder with the lips while entertaining it in seed form through hatred, contempt, and cowardly neglect.

First, if we were to rebuke the injustices that exist in our modern culture's obsession with justice, ironically, we will look at the evil, how evil is somehow lacking in grace, right?

Our attention towards justice is actually an evil in our current society, right?

Because we've elevated to such an extent the idea of grace and mercy that we would even be out -merciful, out -mercy

God in this respect, or we would attempt to. Again, in many ways, this lie that justice against evil is somehow lacking in grace, and is a word un -Christian, right, this is a lie, it's a cultural lie that we have to repent of and do our part in repenting of and rebuking.

God himself has established the principle that life is sacred because man bears his image. Genesis 9, 6 says, "'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.'

When the wicked shed blood, the Lord does not call the righteous to shrug their shoulders and call for peace, to explain why the person did it, why it wasn't actually their fault, but it's the system's fault, or it's this other person's fault, or these generations in the past's fault, he calls rulers instead to act.

The magistrate is a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil, and it bears not the sword in vain," according to Romans 13, or at least it shouldn't.

Right, a society that refuses to punish evil is not merciful, it's unjust, and it's violating the sixth commandment, fulfilling the positive aspect of the law to enforce justice and to protect human life, not just not kill it.

Again, this impulse that our society has is training the violent to be bold, and it teaches the innocent that their lives are cheap, and this is violation of God's command to not kill.

And there's also an opposite lie to this, and we need to be equally vigorous in our rebuke of it, the lie that violence is righteousness merely because it's loud, tribal, or politically useful.

Right, and most often we see this in when it comes to times of war that will justify the violence, right, because there's a reason for it from a political perspective, or again, tribally, or whatever it may be, this kind of, maybe a racial vanglory, you could even say.

Scripture gives allowance in Ecclesiastes chapter three for the idea of a time for war, of course, and the idea of just war certainly permeates the scriptures, but it never blesses war as sport, as vengeance, or as pride, right?

There's a world of difference between murder and justice, between cruelty and lawful defense, between shedding blood for lust and resisting evil to preserve life, shedding blood for gain, right, for lust of power, lust of prestige, whatever it may be, and we need to be careful not to allow what might be politically expedient to cloud our judgment in these things.

As Christians, we must be discerning enough to know if one of those lies is being spun for us, right, and to overcome them with the truth in all things, taking every thought and every news headline and political speech captive and interpret it in the mind of Christ.

And second, we must rebuke our own cowardice and sentimental passivity, right?

Many will quote love when they mean comfort, right, or avoidance, but God's word says in Proverbs 24, deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain.

It's not a suggestion, right, it's a summons, and that is what wisdom does, that's what righteousness does when they have one among them who needs to be punished.

All right, when we hide behind, you know, I didn't wanna get involved, the Spirit answers, doth not he, this is the next verse of Proverbs 24 in verse 12, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it, right?

God has, God knows what justice is, and if you know it as well, you are required to do the right thing, and to stand by while the weak are devoured is not neutrality, it's complicity, and again, the sixth commandment does not only forbid the hand that strikes, it condemns the heart that refuses to help.

That's why, this is why the scriptures praise proactive protection, and this is, I think, hopefully really applicable for us as well, especially for the men here to be thinking about in our homes, but when

God's people faced threat, they were told in Nehemiah 4 .14, be not afraid of them and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.

Protection of family and neighbor and self is not bloodthirstiness, it is righteous love.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love does not watch, love intervenes. Now, I think that we, as a church here, do a good job of these things, or at least we're mindful of them, but I wanna further encourage you because we live in a time of a

Christian culture that would promote the idea that Christians should never respond to protect themselves because where's your security?

Isn't your security in Christ? How dare you try to protect yourself or your loved ones? And I want to encourage you, don't ever listen to that.

Don't ever listen to those people. Repent, turn from them, literally turn from them and turn to Christ, take those thoughts captive that people are trying to spin to you and follow after righteousness, wherein love protects its people.

It protects itself and it protects its people and there's nothing wrong with that. Rather, it's the right thing to do. Third, the commandment comes for the private sins that we excuse because they never make the news.

Again, we certainly know that this command because of the way that Christ teaches it to us in the

Sermon on the Mount is not merely about the external, right? But rather the root is exposed in Matthew 5 in verses 21 and 22.

Jesus says, you have heard, thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

So we must repent of cherished anger, cutting words, contempt in the pleasure of seeing an enemy fall, right?

Whether this is within our own lives or on macro levels as well. We have to be careful not to allow our anger or our frustrations to cloud our judgment today.

Now, I don't wanna, this isn't a position on the current conflict or war in Iran, but when

I hear people say, well, this has been 45 years in the making, right? From what the, from the

Iran hostage conflict in the late 70s, right? We as Christians need to hear that and say, there is a time to get vengeance for that in that moment when there were people who were actually at risk, right?

That's not, cannot be a justification for action 45 years later. Think about this in the law of God.

If you have an intruder come into your home at night and he's in your home, you have a right to defend yourself against that person.

Even if, and if you find out the next day that they did harm to, let's say your wife or your child while they were there, but you didn't know about it while they were there and now they're gone, that your children and wife are no longer under threat, you are not at liberty to carry out vengeance on that person the very next day, right?

Because at that point, the justice belongs to the magistrate, belongs to the state that God has established.

It doesn't belong to you to carry out your form of justice, your form of vengeance. And we take these thoughts captive today when the political discourse is, this is 45 years in the making, we have to be able to hear that and say, is that justice then, right?

Not to say that the whole thing is wrong because of that, because some people think that's why we should do it, but to say we have to, as Christians, be more thoughtful than giving into those ideas.

Does this make sense? So at the end of the day, what I'm trying to explain here when it comes to the sixth commandment is that justice against evil is good and it's part of our obedience to this commandment.

It's not just don't kill, it's carry out justice righteously, right? That is a good thing. Protection of the innocent is righteous.

So there's a proactive way to carry out justice. Protection of the innocent, do that. That is righteous and good. That's a way that we obey this command.

And the Christian who truly reveres God must learn to hate what God hates and to love what God loves, beginning with his image bearers all around us, right?

Ourselves included. So this is the principle that we have to carry forward, that justice against evil is good and it's proactive and it's reactive, but it's not an endless amount of reactivity that we're allowed to have.

And so with all that, I want to encourage us to repent, right? So to pay attention to the cultural evils around us, cultural lies that are being spun around us.

And how can we as Christians take these thoughts captive to properly follow after our

Christ in these things, not succumb to the winds of the age, but rather to be a people of who are chasing after our

Lord and Savior, people who cherish and love our God and his word and his wisdom. Amen?

Amen. And so if you are able, I'd invite you to please join me in kneeling as we would confess our sins again, culturally and personally to our

God this day. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for your commandments to us. Lord, all of the commandments of your scriptures and these 10 words here, this sixth commandment in particular today,

Lord, but we ask you would strengthen us in the remembering of these things, that you would help us to be a people who have your law written on our hearts and hidden in our hearts, even so that as we encounter things in this world, culturally and within ourselves, that we are able to take these thoughts and ideas captive and not succumb to the winds of the age,

Lord, but rather may we be a people who love you, love your wisdom, and through that,

Lord, able to properly esteem what is just and right in the situations that we'd encounter, again, whether it's within our lives as individuals, as families, as a church,

Lord, or on larger scales, as well as communities and states and nations. We ask your help to us in these things, to repent,

Lord, to cherish, again, truth and righteousness and goodness in these matters in particular, particularly when it comes to life, that we would be a people who cherish life here.

We would be a people who are constantly working and laboring proactively for the preservation, the protection, and the flourishing of your image bearers,

Lord, all around us, from the household of God to the ends of the earth. We ask your help and we confess our sin to you in Jesus' name, trusting that you will hear us,

Lord, and you will grant pardon to us by grace and through faith. And Lord, all these things we, again, pray in Jesus' name.

And amen. Amen. If you would, please stand me. Oh, excuse me, stand with me. Stand me.

Can't stand me. Great. Oh, man. Well, please stand with me.

Thank you. As we will hear from God himself in his judgment upon us, again, we are all sinners.

We've all fallen short of the glory of God and the punishment for sin, the penalty for sin is death, right?

That is the penalty that God laid out in his word. And that is what we all deserve. And let us find it in this moment that we have as we consider the pardon that he's granted to us, understand the weight of that, that God spoke a judgment.

And instead of carrying out that judgment upon us, right? That he was able to make a way by pouring that judgment out upon his own son to show mercy to his people.

And so let us find great hope and peace in that. Again, may we not be a people who look to be more merciful than God in the situations he has not called us to be merciful in, but may we be a people who love and cherish the mercy that he has given to us in the person of his son, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Hear your pardon today from Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the

Lord forever. Amen? Amen. Amen. The Lord, again, by his kind graces to us, his kind mercies to us, we call him our shepherd because he has redeemed us through his son, the

Lord Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of God's elect. And now, goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives, and we'll dwell with him forever.