You Shall Not Kill

Well, I left you last week with the question in view of what Jesus teaches here in Matthew
chapter 5, "Is breaking the law of God in thought and attitude just as bad as breaking
it in word and action?" In other words, is thinking about killing your neighbor just as bad
as actually killing him. I'm very interested in the answers that you came up with. How many
of you think the answer to that is yes? All right. How many of you think the answer to
that is no? How many of you think it is yes and no? All right. Just to be in the safe
side, that's my choice. That way we're all right. Nobody has to feel badly about himself.
I believe the biblical answer is indeed yes and no to that question. No. Because the fact
of the matter is that the deed is worse than the thought in terms of human relationships.
If I kill you or you kill me, then our lives are snuffed out, where relationships are
significantly torn apart, and if we are found out, we're going to be held accountable
by the law. If I only think about killing you, the only one who knows about that is God
and the consequences on that level are less serious than actually doing it. So the answer
is no in that sense, but it is yes in that thinking about murder violates the sixth
commandment you shall not kill before God, everything as much as the actual deed. Because
from God's point of view, the very act of thinking it also violates the commandment you
shall not kill. God is interested, not only in our obedience to the letter of the law.
He is also interested in our obedience to the spirit of the law. And then of course,
as what Jesus talks about here in this particular passage, when he says, "You have heard
that it was said to the people long ago, did not murder, and anybody who murders will
be subject to judgment, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will
be subject to judgment, and anyone who says to his brother, "Raka is answerable to this
inhedrin, but anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell." Now, as
I put it out last week, just in passing towards the clothes of the message, "At first glance,
it looks as if Jesus is contradicting the law and the prophets." He says, "You have heard
that it was said, but I say to you." And I pointed out that Jesus Himself says that He
has come not to abolish the law and the prophets, but rather to fulfill them. And so He
is not contradicting what the Old Testament is teaching. Rather, what He is doing is He
is going back to the original intent of the law that God gave you. And when God says
in the Ten Commandments and Commandment Number 6, "You shall not kill." It wasn't simply
His intention to stop us from engaging in the physical act of killing. He also wanted
us to deal with the underlying attitude that always gives rise to the actual deed. Now,
the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious teachers before them had so reduced the
law to its literal letter application that they had lost sight of the deeper spiritual
meaning that God originally intended in the giving of the Ten Commandments. And so
what Jesus does in this particular passage now is He begins to illustrate both negatively
and positively not only what it means to keep the letter of the law, but more importantly,
the spirit of the law. And as we look at that together this morning, I can guarantee you
there isn't going to be a one of His here who isn't going to feel spoken to at one point
or another. Because while it's relatively easy, perhaps, to curtail our outward behavior
and to walk the narrow line, controlling our inner life in the face of her pain and injury
tends to be much more difficult. So notice this morning as we progress with these verses
that Jesus addresses both negatively and positively then the attitude that He wants us
to have within our hearts towards our neighbor. So negatively, He says, first of all, we are
to avoid harboring anger. I tell you anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject
to judgment. Not good enough for me not to kill you. I must not even entertain an appropriate
anger toward you. Now think this through with me a little bit. Why do we get angry and
why do we get angry with other people? Well, I can think of two reasons. The first is because
they do wrong. I heard just recently the horrific story of a six year old girl being having
been brutally raped by one of the significant men in her family. I hear a story like that
in my gut wrenches and my temper, I must tell you, rises. I get angry and I hope you do
too because you want to because God does. Anger in and of itself is not necessarily wrong.
The Bible says, be angry but do not sin. And that kind of righteous anger that is directed
towards a sinner's behavior is not the kind of anger that Jesus is talking about here
about all never to be present in your life and in my life because then he himself would
have been a sinner because he got plenty angry when he was confronted by disobedience
and rebellion. The kind of anger that he is addressing, however, is the kind of anger
that we find in our hearts when we feel that we have been offended against whether in the
real world or in our imagination. It's actually very interesting that if you look at the margin
of this passage, you will discover there is a textual variant, that is to say some
manuscripts in the original language add the words, angry without cause. Very hard to
determine whether they belong there or not. I suspect they were added by a scribe who
felt that just the word anger needed a little bit of explanation. But certainly there are
times in your life and in my life when we're angry because people have taken us to task.
I remember one time years ago, I had preached. You got to know what a wonderful sermon
on K. Desperenea. First church that I pastored, it was all about
visioning and how God wanted his people to move forward into the promised land. It all
happened sometimes with inspired sermons like that. Not everybody likes them. You would
know about that, but I can tell you a thing or two about it. Somebody got really angry
and they brought in what we call the church visitors who are pastors from other churches
and they proceeded to analyze that sermon, take it apart and skewer it to the wall. Unfairly
I thought because they misread me, they misrepresented my motivation and for a long time afterwards
whenever I saw particularly this one colleague, I had anger just rising up inside me because
I felt so unjustly treated and so wrongly done by. I dare say that most of us here will
have found ourselves in situations where anger wells up on the inside and we play out
all the scenarios in our minds about how it is that we'd like to get even, or am I the
only one who has a very fertile imagination in the middle of the night on what God ought
to do with all my enemies. Well Jesus says, "The commandment you shall not kill." Not only
means that I ought not to go out there and carry out my thoughts, I must not even entertain
those thoughts. And when you get to that point, you begin to realize how much we all need
Jesus because that comes as naturally to each one of us as the driven snow. The Heidelberg
Catechism, one of our confessions, you can read about it in the back of the Psalter
hymnal and responds to its treatment of the commandment you shall not kill, says it
this way, "By forbidding murder, God teaches us that He hates the root of murder, envy,
hatred, anger, vindictiveness in God's sight, all such, all such, our murder." We are
to avoid harboring anger, says Jesus, and then as if to make sure that we get the point
he goes on to say, we are to avoid trashing people. We not only are not to entertain feelings
of anger, we must resist the temptation to run off at the mouth and express words of judgment
and condemnation. Notice again how he goes on. Anyone who says to his brother, Reika, is
insurable to the synhedrin. But anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire
of hell. Now Reika, as I pointed out last week, is an aramaic term of contempt. It literally
means a worthless fellow, the modern equivalent is something like you good for nothing idiot.
And Jesus says, you call somebody that, you give that kind of expression, then you are
in danger of being dragged in this case before the synhedrin, which would be the equivalent
of a judicial court today. But then he goes on to say, you call somebody a fool and you
will be in danger of the fire of hell. Now listen carefully, a fool in scripture is
not just a silly person who makes unwise decisions. A fool in scripture is a person who
lives his life in rebellion against God and in defiance of his commandments. How does
this almost put it? The fool has set in his heart one. There is no God. Why is he a fool?
Because simply thinking there is no God doesn't make God go away. And so a person who likes
to live as if there is no God is a fool because in the end of days he's still going to have
to stand before God and give account of himself. And so Jesus says to you and to me, not only
must we not entertain anger within our hearts, but we need to put a guard in front of our mouths.
We can't just go calling people idiots. We can't just go calling people fools. The modern
equivalent would be to dem them to hell because that's really what's happening in that
expression because we're going to be judged by every idle word we ever speak. Now that
doesn't mean you can never be angry with somebody. That doesn't mean you cannot, in fact,
speak out into somebody's life and firmly call them to task. Jesus Himself does that.
But you see the difference is that it must never flow out of our frustration, our angerness,
our resentment and bitterness. If we're going to take somebody to task, we've got to speak
words anointed by the Holy Spirit that are intended for their good, not from our heart
of vengeance or because we want to feel good about it. And the reason for that is that
words have an incredible power, both to bless and to curse. We've all heard that little
saying sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me. And we all know
that it's a bunch of hogwash because more of us in the course of life are hurt by words
spoken in anger and impatience and unkindness than most of us ever are by being hurt physically
by sticks and stones. One of the women here told me the story a while back. Being a young
girl, she was in grade eight. She was cornered in a washroom by one of the girls that didn't
like her. And the girl made fun of her and said, "You're fat." And then as she remained
behind in the bathroom to try to recover from that, the girl and another girlfriend walked
out and the other girlfriend said to her, "What did you say that for?" She's not fat. And
the other girl said, "I said it because I know that those words will be stuck in her mind
forever." And they were. Not surprisingly, that girl went on as the years went by to have
a significant eating disorder. Sticks and stones may hurt my bones. But words can do damage
to the core of our being. And Jesus says, "Watch your mouth and watch the attitude that speaks
judgmentally about others, even in the privacy of your own home." Because I think there's
a verse in Proverbs that talks about, "If you're talking about the king, a little bird will
hear it." And he'll go carry it to somebody else. Likewise, if you hear somebody say
something bad about somebody else, don't be the carrier of bad news unless your motivation
is to help restoration, not just to stir the fire and to feel powerful because you're
keeping people off balance. Again, the catechism in response to the question, "What is God's
will in the sixth commandment puts it this way, I am not to be little. Insult hate or kill
my neighbor. Not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by actual
deeds." And I am not to be party to this in others, rather I am to put away all the desire
for revenge. We are to avoid harboring anger. We are to avoid trashing people, negative attitudes
that we must learn to avoid. And then Jesus says positively, "We must first of all seek
restoration." For notice, again, how he goes on. If you are offering your gift at the
altar, and they remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there
in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, and then offer your gift.
Couple of things in that verse or those two verses that are worth noting. And the first
thing is that it is possible for relationships to be broken. The context of the whole passage
is constantly that of dealing with your brother or dealing with your sister. And a brother
and a sister in your life, in this context is not just anybody, it is a fellow disciple
of Jesus. God delights in unity among His people, but we live in a real world and there
is plenty of sin left in all of us. And every so often it will happen in your life and
in my life that our covenant with a brother or a sister gets broken. Now it may be because
the other person fails to keep his or her side of the deal. The fault may lie with me.
Often it lies with both of us. It may be real. It may be imaginary. The break or the misunderstanding
fact of the matter is you can go through life without periodically getting hurt, wounded
and offended, particularly by people who are close to you. It is unavoidable. And anybody
who professes that it never happens to them is either such a saint that they don't belong
here or there is such a big liar and they don't belong here. Relationships can be broken.
And when relationships are broken, the onus is on each one of us to try to make it right.
And it is very easy to say, well, you know, it is the other person's job and they have
wronged me and they need to come to me in the context of the passage. Whoever it is that
is the most mature. Well, probably have the greatest obligation to try to work through
the difference as quickly and as efficiently as you can. And that doesn't mean that every
relationship can always be restored. But it means that we must make every effort to try
to understand each other and engage each other. You see, because what happens to a lot
of us, we get offended by something somebody says, or does. And we say to ourselves, well,
I'll just sit it out and wait till it wears off. And sometimes it does. But the enemy of
our souls has invested interest in stirring up misunderstanding, in stirring up broken relationships
and stuff, as we'll see in a few moments, can get out of hand real quick. And sometimes
it isn't enough just to talk to God about it. Sometimes we just need to sit down with
each other and say, I have a problem. And this is the issue. A very scary thing to do.
And always immediately lead to understanding. But it's in that engaging process that community
is built and relationship was restored. And Dave and Valerie have shared with this congregation
previously how there was a season in their lives where they were in understanding each
other. And they would try to engage. And instead of getting better, it got worse, but
they stuck to it. And in sticking to it, ultimately, they got to the core of what their
issues were. And they were reconciled. I'd much rather, you come to me, if you're offended
by anything that you hear or anything that you see or anything that I have or haven't
done. And for you to sit back and stew on it, talk to 100 friends about it, and leave
me out of the loop. Because it makes me powerless to deal with it. And it does you too. Jesus
says, leave your gift at the altar. Go find your brother or your sister and try to straighten
it out while you can. And the reason this is so important, says Jesus, is that unresolved
relationships impact our walk with God. And most of us will have experienced that. You
had really angry at somebody. Stew on it day after day. You try to put it away. You can't.
You don't want to confess it, deal with it or resolve it. And pretty soon spiritually,
you begin to suffer because every time you try to draw close to God, it's like God is
standing there and saying, excuse me, we have a little unresolved issue here that you
need to deal with. Do you notice how it's in the context of going to worship that you
discover? Your brother has something against you, you know why that is? Because every time
you open up your heart to God and start trying to connect with God, God alerts your heart
about the places where your relationships are broken. I remember one of the very earliest
dinimuses that we had here. One of the most interesting effects of that first dinimus
conference wasn't so much the teaching that we received about the Holy Spirit great and
good as that was. It was the conviction that was taking in people's hearts or taking
place in people's hearts about broken relationships that needed to be restored. And Jesus says,
when that's what your discovery is, leave your gift at the altar when the Holy Spirit
convicts you, go find whoever you need to find and straighten it out while you can, because
God doesn't want your worship as long as it is coming out of a heart that is filled
with bitterness and that's filled with anger. Now that doesn't mean you just pretend
all as well when all is not well. It doesn't mean you deny legitimate emotions, it doesn't
mean that you just paste on a plastic smile and say all as well with my soul, aren't we
wonderfully great Christians now? In real life, in real relationships, we're going to
get under each other's skin. But Jesus says, when that happens, we need to walk across
the bridge, and we need to take whatever steps we can and know how to take in order for
those relationships to be restored. And usually that will mean each of us has to do a lot
of forgiving, because you see if we're death collectors and we demean somebody else to
pay the last penny, then we're going to be in situations where nobody can pay the price.
And if that was true, in God's dealings with us, we'd all be out on our ears. That
having been said, we need to do what we can to see the justice is dealt with in the context
of forgiveness. We must, you with me here? Aren't you glad you came to church today?
To me, as much as it does to you, so join the club. We must seek restoration, says Jesus.
And then he goes on to say that there is a remarkable urgency to this, for notice how
he finishes this, this pericopy, this passage. He says, "Settle matters quickly with your
adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way,
or he may hand you over to the judge." And the judge may hand you over to the officer,
and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you
have paid the last penny. The picture, here is a man who has fallen afoul of somebody
else who has legitimate claim against him. He's going to drag him into court. And Jesus
says, "Before you ever get there, try to settle with him on the way. There is an urgency
about making up when we are in disagreement with anybody else." And the reason for that,
I believe, biblically speaking, is too bold. First of all, things have a way of getting
out of hand. I'm mad at you, you're mad at me. You tell ten friends, I tell ten friends.
Now we have ten friends on the go and the makings of good gang warfare. They all tell ten
other friends. Now we've got a hundred people involved. The story by now will have multiplied
from a molehill into a mountain. And it's like the proverbial toothpaste out of the tube,
try to put it back in. It's a lot harder to get it out there than it is to get it back
in. So do it quickly. Besides that, all of us are sinful enough outside of Christ that
we take a perverted pleasure in feeling angry and unrighteous. Haven't you ever noticed
that? If you don't deal with it real quick, deal with it right away and deal with it radically,
there is something that settles in your soul that finds a, "Oh, it is a devilish satisfaction
in being able to hold this over the other person because it justifies my anger." And
how many times in all of our relationships don't we dig in our heels and we play those
mind games to say who can hold on the longest before they cave in and has to try to make
it right? I've told you earlier, one of the advantages of my profession is that I can
never afford to stay mad at my wife for longer than a week because I get to get up and
talk to you. And when she's sitting there with her beatific smile on the back, putting
me under conviction, then I gotta deal with it now. And so do you, because you're coming
to church. Things get out of hand. And they not only get out of hand, but we all face
the prospect of judgment. Now here's something that I have never previously noted until this
week in the reading of this passage. The motivation all through this passage for dealing not
only with your actions with regard to your neighbor, but also the underlying attitudes
is constantly in the context of judgment. Listen to how Jesus puts it. You've heard that
it was said long ago. Do not murder anyone who murders will be what? Subject to judgment.
I tell you anyone who is angry with his brother will be what? Subject to judgment. Anybody
who says you fool will be in danger of hellfire. Settle matters quickly with your adversary
or you'll get thrown into prison and you won't get out until the very last penny has been
paid. Now what's Jesus trying to tell you there? Well, he says in a civil society, when
you transgress the commandment of your neighbor, if you actually go out there and you speak
words of condemnation or you actually harm them, you're going to be found out, you're
going to be called to account and you're going to be charged. That's why there's so much
talk these days about cyber bullying at school. That's why we have hate or anti-hate
legislation on the record. Your words will come back and haunt you. And here's the argument
Jesus uses. Now he says if that's what happens in a civil society because of spoken words
and actions that you have performed, he says you got to remember that we all stand before
the judgment seat of God one day and we're going to give account not only for our actions,
not only for our words, but also for the attitude of our hearts. Unless your righteousness
exceeds that he says of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter into
the kingdom of heaven. It's not enough, not a kill. It's not enough, not to hate or to
speak words of hatred. We must also in a positive way embrace our neighbor, love him with
all of our heart and seek to do what we can to protect him from evil. Again, here is
how the catacasem puts it by condemning envy, hatred and anger. God tells us to love our
neighbor as ourselves to be patient, peace loving, gentle, merciful and friendly to him
and to protect him from harm as much as we can and to do good, even, even to our enemies.
What I close this morning with the true story comes out of the nation of Korea. Korea, throughout
history has often been invaded and around the turn of the last century it was invaded
by Japan and the Japanese, if you know history, treated the Koreans with extreme cruelty,
particularly their cruelty was addressed to the Christian community. One of the first
things they did was outlaw Christian assembly and in the course of time the pastor of one
of those churches went to the head of the Japanese garrison in the community and begged
him if please, very please can we gather together for worship eventually the garrison officer
agreed to it Christians were related from far and wide they crammed into that little
church building and they sang their songs of praise and prayed their prayers with enthusiasm
and excitement but it was a trap because as they were singing nearer my god to the police
barricaded the doors, doused the little wooden building with kerosene and said fire to
me. You can imagine the horror people try to jump out of the windows they get shot to
pieces and as the flames were going up the pastor could only lead his congregation in songs
of worship and the very law of song they sang was the song at the cross at the cross where
I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away it was there by faith I received
my sight soon the cries of the children and the songs of the adults were still as the
roof caved in every single soul died horrifically well they erected a memorial on that site the
Koreans did and they picked up their lives and they went on with it as best as they
could but you could imagine the bitterness that settled in their souls against the Japanese
and that went on from decade to decade from generation to generation unabated growing
in ferociousness the memories kept alive but the stories that were told until 1972 and
in 1972 a delegation of Japanese pastors visited Korea came to this memorial shrine where
this horrific incident had taken place were informed about what had happened and were deeply
convicted by the horror and the guilt of the Japanese nation they went back to Japan they
collected a huge offering they they built a new church building on that location and on the
day of the dedication they together with the descendants of those who had been martyred in that
church gather together the speeches were made the details of the tragedy were recalled the names
of the dead were honored as the service was drawing to a close they chose the two songs that had
been the last two songs that had been sung decades earlier by that congregation nearer my God to
thee and at the cross the normally stoic Japanese could no longer contain themselves the tears that
began to fill their eyes during the song suddenly gushed from deep inside they turned to their
Korean spiritual relatives and begged them for forgiveness the guarded calloused hearts of the
Korean the Koreans were not quick to surrender but the love of the Japanese believers unintimidated
by decades of hatred tore at the Koreans emotion at the cross at the cross where I first saw
the light and the burden of my heart rolled away one Korean turned toward a Japanese brother
then another and then suddenly the floodgates holding back a wave of emotion let go the Koreans
met their new Japanese friends in the middle they clung to each other and they wept the Japanese
tears of repentance and the Korean tears of forgiveness intermingled to bathe the sight
of an old nightmare heaven had sent the gift of reconciliation to a little white church
in Korea Jesus said you've heard it said you shall not murder but I say to you
anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment aren't you glad for Jesus
how else can injuries so deep in pain so great ever be overcome and my counsel and suggestion
for each one of us here this morning regardless of where we find ourselves whenever the Lord
tugs at your heart and says your attitude towards him or her is not right then layhold of God's
grace in Christ however you do it in whatever way you must but don't give up until he transformed you
to the core of your being remember that colleague I talked about earlier the one who
wounded me so badly so unjustifiably in my opinion and how I struggled and struggled Lord
God how can I ever forgive him how can he ever love him well I can testify to the saving grace of
Jesus in that regard because you know there came a time I met that man totally unexpectedly
and none of those stirrings were there and I knew that God had worked a miracle of grace
in my heart and what he can do for me in that regard he can also do for each one of us
because Jesus is alive at the right hand of God he intercedes and he is poured out the holy spirit
so that we can keep not only the letter of the law but more and more by grace through faith in him
this spirit of the law
Lord I come to you let my heart be changed we knew flowing from your grace that I found in you
Lord I've come to know the witness as I see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love
Lord I've come to you let my heart be changed we knew flowing from your grace that I found in you
and as I wait I'll rise up and be gone and I will show you your spirit needs me on by the power of your love
Lord I've come to know the witness as I see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love
Lord I've come to know the witness as I see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love
in living every day and power of your love
Lord I've come to know the witness as I see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love
journey to your side and as I wait I'll rise up and be gone and I will show you your spirit needs me on
in the power of your love and I will show you your spirit needs me on in the power of your love