Thou shalt not kill Exodus 20:1-13
A little girl was writing a paper for her English class and she asked her father, "Dad, what is the difference between anger and exasperation?" "It’s mostly a matter of degree" her dad replied. "Let me show you what I mean" and he picked up the phone and dialed a number at random. A man answered the phone and the dad said, "Hello, is Homer there?" The man on the other end answered, "I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number. There’s nobody here by that name." The father said thank you and hung up. Then he immediately hit redial, "Hello, is Homer there?" asked the father. And the guy at the other end said, "Now listen up buddy, there’s nobody here by that name so quit bothering me!" The dad listened as the man slammed the phone down. You see, said the dad, he is starting to get angry. Then he hit redial again and a loud voice comes on the line. "HELLO!" the man yells. "Yes, is Homer there?” asked the father calmly. "Are you crazy?" the man screams, " I told you Homer doesn’t live here so don’t call back again!" and he slammed the phone down again. "Did you hear that?" the father asked the little girl, "Now that is what anger sounds like." "Now you’re going to hear exasperation." He picked the phone up and hit redial again. "HELLO!" boomed the voice on the other end. "Hello" the dad says politely, "This is Homer, have I had any calls?" (Now, this is a guy who would appreciate today’s commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”
“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill.”
Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments in Matthew 22:35-40 where it says, “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” And in these verses Jesus summed up the teaching of the entire Old Testament when He said, love God with everything you’ve got and then love everyone else as much as you love yourself.
And it’s interesting that He said, “the second part of the law is like the first” because what He was saying is; what we think about God is demonstrated by how we act toward one another. And this is especially true because we believe man was made in the image of God. We could probably even prove this from the negative by seeing how people who follow something other than God have a tendency to treat their fellow man.
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean. A few years ago there was a hijacking and hostage taking in the Middle East. And when negotiations slowed down; one of the terrorists shot and killed two people. One of the eye witnesses said that between killing these two people, the terrorist stopped long enough to tell one of his friends a joke. Now, when you hear that you wonder, how could anyone be so callous? Well, the movement was his god and as far as he was concerned; human life was worthless because the movement was the only thing that mattered.
We saw the same thing in the former Soviet Union where everyone was told that the political system was more important than any one person. And those who led the nation justified themselves by feeding and equipping their army while they were starving the population to death. You see, they were serving a philosophy and not a god.
And then today, we have what’s called the humanist movement and to them all life is sacred and as far as they’re concerned this life is all there is; so, this life is their god. One example of this is the Greenpeace Movement and these are people who will literally risk their lives to save seals, whales and dolphins and I’m sure many of you have seen them on the news sailing little boats in the paths of those large fishing ships and doing whatever they can to stop the slaughter. And yet, the Toronto Sun; which is considered by many to be a left leaning publication; published a survey that was taken among the members of Greenpeace and 95% of them said they were pro-abortion. So, these are people who would risk their lives to save a baby seal but have no problem at all killing an unborn baby. You see, to them all life is sacred but all life is not necessarily convenient.
All these non-Christian philosophies came to a head with what was called situational ethics and it’s a philosophy that says, every situation calls us to do the most ethical or loving thing for everyone. And it sounds good but the problem is it’s based on human reasoning rather than the word of God.
I read about a teacher who wanted to illustrate how weak human reasoning was; so she described the following situation to her class. She said, “Here was a mother who was pregnant with her fifth child and to understand her situation you have to know the following facts. Her husband had syphilis and she had tuberculosis; her first child was born blind; her second child died; her third child was born deaf and the fourth one had tuberculosis. And based on her past history this mother was considering having an abortion. Now, considering her past do you think she should have it or not?" After some discussion most of the students agreed she should; and then the teacher said, "If you said ’Yes’ you would have just killed the great composer Ludwig von Beethoven!"
Listen, man only has a sense of value when he sees himself and his fellow human beings as being made in the image of God and when he does he also sees himself as being accountable to God and then we see the fulfillment of the saying, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” You see, that’s when we are at our best. It’s our relationship with God that makes us not only precious in His sight but also unusually different from everybody else and that’s why He says, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Happy Birthday to me by Dr. Seuss
If you’d never been born, what would you be?
You could have been a rock, a toad or a tree.
Or worse than all of that, you could have been a wasn’t.
Now a wasn’t has no fun at all no he doesn’t,
A wasn’t just isn’t present, but you are here, now, isn’t that pleasant.
Today, you are you and it’s truer than true,
There’s no one alive that is youer than you.
Shout out loud, I am glad of who I am,
Thank God, I’m not a rock, a clam or a ham or a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam.
I am what I am and it’s a great thing to be.
If I should say so myself, happy birthday to me.
So, we are all, every one of us special in the sight of God and He says, “I don’t want you killing each other.”
I What does He mean by the word, kill? Well, killing is simply murder.
And I want to point out what murder doesn’t mean because people have used and abused both this word and this commandment. For instance, I’ve seen it used as a slogan for those who oppose the death penalty, on signs for animal rights groups and also at anti-war rallies.
Now, we know this commandment doesn’t forbid the death penalty because the death penalty isn’t an act of killing that’s motivated by hatred or even personal vengeance. There might be those who are glad to see the offender get what he or she deserves but the purpose of capital punishment was God’s way of affirming the value of human life and punishing those who destroy it.
Don Feder who is a Jewish journalist and not a Christian said, "Executing a murderer is the only way to adequately express our horror at the taking of an innocent life. Nothing else suffices. To equate the lives of killers with those of victims is the worst kind of moral equivalency. If capital punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping and restitution is state theft."
Now, before the law was even given God said in Genesis 9:6, “Whoever shed’s man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.” And basically, God was saying, “You’re going to reap what you sow” because if you take someone else’s life you’re going to have to give your own in return. And this was before the law was given.
And when the law was given it said in Exodus 21:12-15, “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar that he may die. And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.”
So, all throughout Old Testament history capital; punishment for premeditated murder was accepted and practiced by the believing community and it wasn’t just sanctioned by God but He ordered it.
And when we come to the New Testament we find that Jesus made two comments that were directly in support of the death penalty. In Matthew 26:52 it says, “But Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.’” Jesus was telling Peter, if you use your sword to commit a crime, then those who carry the sword to enforce the law are going to use their sword to take your life and that was just the way it was.
We could say the same thing happens today; because even though Canada no longer practices capital punishment our police forces still carry guns and those who use any kind of weapon while committing a crime, face the possibility of being shot by a police officer. And we could say that just like the Roman soldiers our police don’t carry weapons in vain but they carry them for a purpose and that’s for both their defense and the protection of society.
Paul agrees with this in Romans 13:4 where he was writing about the role of the soldier or police officer of his day and he said, “For he is God’s minister to you for good. But, if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” So, both Jesus and Paul agreed that capital punishment was the proper order of the day.
The second verse is in John 19:11 where Jesus stood before Pilate and said to him, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.” And basically, what He was saying was that God that gave Pilate the power to enforce capital punishment. ‘It was given him from above.’
And then there’s the argument from the thief on the cross. Remember when Jesus was hanging on the cross one of the thieves rebuked the other for mocking the Lord and he said, “We deserve what we are getting.” Now, listen, this criminal said, we deserve what we’re getting and basically he was agreeing with those who were killing him and you’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t disagree with him.
Although all of us react at the very thought of capital punishment we also know there have been many who have turned to God while they were on death row; because while they were facing the judgment of man; they quickly learned to fear the judgment of God. Again, I think of the example of the thief on the cross; he may never have faced his need of a savior had he not been conscious of his impending death.
In the first couple of years I was saved, I used to teach a Bible study at Rochdale College and Rochdale was an 18 story hippy hang-out, so, everyone and anyone was welcome. And sometimes we had up to forty people coming to these Tuesday night Bible studies. Most of them were the long-haired hippy crowd but there were also a few older people. One lady that came was in her early seventies and after she had been there a couple of weeks she invited me to her house for lunch.
So, I went and there was her, her husband who was quite crippled and myself. After lunch we sat down to talk and she told me she had been visiting people in the various jails around Ontario for years. And she showed me a scrap book that held letters she received from various prisoners she had visited and one that really stood out was a note from one of the last men hanged in Canada. He was only about seventeen at the time but he had shot someone to death while trying to rob a restaurant and he was arrested and sentenced to death. And this lady who had known the warden got permission to go to the Don Jail and she led him to the Lord. And in this book was this guy’s letter, written in the last few minutes of his life and he was thanking her for all she did in leading him to Jesus and for the love she had showed. He said, “I just had a great chicken dinner and now I’m going to meet my Savior. So, I’ll see you in heaven.”
Now, if you compare that to today, where those who commit murder know they’ll probably get out in fifteen years or less and go on with their lives; there’s no fear or motivation to face their crime and change their ways. Listen, capital punishment would not only stop them from repeating their crimes but it would also cause them to face the fact they’re about to stand before God.
Another group that uses the slogan, “Thou shalt not kill” are those who are involved in anti-war rallies. We certainly wouldn’t call ourselves pro-war but we also realize; there are times when God has used war as an act of judgment on nations. For instance, Israel was often used by God to punish the Canaanites and many other pagan nations for their idolatry and then the Assyrians and Babylonians who were pagans were also used to punish Israel when they strayed away from God. And even some of the tribes of Israel were used by God to punish other the other tribes for either their immorality or idolatry.
Now, you have to understand that the word ‘kill’ in the Hebrew is the same word as the one for murder in English. It’s the malicious or unlawful taking of a life. More specifically, we could define killing as the taking of a human life when one is motivated either by hatred or anger. So, my first point is that killing is murder and then my second one is:
II God evaluates our actions by the attitudes behind them.
I believe the key to understanding this commandment and how it applies in a very practical way for us today is to look at it like Jesus does on the attitude behind the action. In Matthew 5:21-22 Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
And here Jesus is addressing the issue of murder but He zeros in on the attitude behind the act. Now, why does He do that? It’s because the act of murder is the expression of a heart of anger. You see, God doesn’t evaluate our actions as much as He does our attitudes. He weighs the heart, the thoughts and the intentions which are behind everything we say and do.
In the area of anger there are three ways of expressing our anger that Jesus addresses here. The first one is the person who is angry with his brother without cause. This is a long-brooding anger or what psychologists refer to as a free-floating anger. This describes the person who is always angry and he can’t even tell you why. He gets angry at something someone said and he never forgets it. And Jesus says; this person is in danger of the judgment; because God is going to call him to account for his anger.
Dr. Redford Williams, professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Centre, says this kind of anger or hostility has three stages and he gives an example of the person with this problem. “You’re in the express line at the supermarket and the sign says, ‘No more than eight items.’ Stage one is a distrust of others and you begin counting the items in the basket of the person in front of you. Why do you do that? Because you’re afraid someone is going to cheat and take advantage of you. (And listen, I’m sure we’ve all done that but most of us just do it out of boredom.) Stage two is when you feel yourself getting angry because you see the person in front of you has ten items and you wonder what kind of idiot can’t count past eight. But, stage three is when you show that you’re angry by saying something nasty to the one who got more than eight. (I was reading somewhere the other day that there are people who actually get everyone else in line chanting, “Cheater, cheater, cheater.)
Now, according to this study, people who follow through on all three of these stages are seven times more likely to have a heart attack or die of heart disease before they reach the age of fifty. So, tell me, who are they getting even with?
In a classic Christian book entitled, “None of these diseases” there’s a story about Dr. John Hunter who had been a famous psychologist. He knew what anger could do to the human heart and he once made the statement, “The first scoundrel that gets me angry will kill me.” Sometime later at a medical convention, a speaker made some comments that really made him mad. He stood up and bitterly attacked this guy and his anger caused such a contraction of the blood vessels in his heart that he fell over dead. (Well, I guess he showed him.)
And yet, anger is something that doesn’t always make sense to the natural mind. When you think about the first murder in the Bible where Cain killed his brother Abel; why did he do it? Well, the reason he killed him was because Abel’s gift to God was accepted and his wasn’t. Abel had given a sacrificial animal and Cain gave a display of fruit and vegetables. So, Cain who had refused to kill an animal as a sacrifice to God ended up murdering his brother. Did he think this would somehow make him feel better? Or, did he think at all? As I said, anger doesn’t always make sense.
And then do you remember how Moses got angry at a rock because the rock didn’t pour out water when he hit it? Have you ever gotten angry at an object? Sure, we do it all the time. We get angry at our cars if they don’t start; angry at our animals if they make a mess; angry at our tools if they don’t do the job; angry at our clothes if they rip or don’t fit right and everything else we own.
And then we see people do stupid things out of anger like Saul when he tried to pin David to a wall with his spear three times. Someone said, “He must have been a terrible spear thrower but Saul was the head of the military and he would have been in battles since he was a kid. He depended on his spear to live but; I think it was either God who saved David or Saul’s anger that made him a bad shot. And then you remember Jonah; he got angry at a plant because it died. Listen, anyone who’s pre-occupied with themselves or their stuff can get angry and stay angry at anything.
Someone said, “Anyone can become angry; that’s easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way... that is not easy.”
Seneca said, “Resentment (or anger) is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.” And then Malachy McCourt said, “If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll only hurt your own foot.” Sir James M. Barrie "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." A Greek proverb said, “Those the gods would destroy, first they make angry.”
I read an item in a medical journal that describes what happens when a person gets angry:
• you release a quick spurt of adrenalin
• your adrenal glands become enlarged and discolored
• the lymphatic gland, crucial to the immune system, shrinks intensely
• numerous blood covered ulcers line your stomach
• your cardiovascular system speeds up and your breathing rate and heart rate increase by 25%, blood pressure rises, and more cholesterol is released into your bloodstream
• chemicals that cause the blood to coagulate are released into your bloodstream to help your body form scabs more easily, in case of injury
• your heart beats more forcefully, perhaps even irregularly
• adrenalin dilates the bronchi to allow a maximum intake of oxygen, as your need for oxygen is momentarily increased
• blood goes from your extremities to your vital organs, leaving your hands and feet cooler and lowering your skin temperature
• your gastrointestinal functioning slows down, your sweating increases and your pupils dilate to provide a maximal field of vision
• all your senses become more acute; even the patterns of your brain waves change!
Now listen, these physiological changes take two seconds to manifest but, up to 72 hours to dissipate! So, if you allow yourself to get angry you can ruin the next three days and here’s the best part, you’re only ruining them for yourself and not the one you’re angry at.
No wonder the Chinese proverb says, "If you are patient in one moment of anger you will escape one hundred days of sorrow." Do you see what you get when you read your fortune cookie?
In Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to stop worrying and start living” he tells about taking a trip to Yellowstone National Park and he went to the place where the grizzly bears are fed. The park ranger explained that the glizzly could whip any animal in the park with the exception of the buffalo and the Kodiak bear. But Dale noticed that when the grizzly bear ate his food the only other animal that came around undisturbed was the skunk. And the ranger said the grizzly could’ve beaten that skunk in a second but he realized the price was too high. You see, there’s always a high price for getting even.
For two thousand years people have laughed at Jesus advice to love your enemies but now we’re starting to realize the price we pay for hating anyone; it not only hurts us in this life but Jesus says we’ll also have to give account for it in the day of judgment.
So, the first kind of anger is the man who is angry with his brother without a cause and then the second kind is one who says to his brother, raca, and raca is not a translatable term. It’s more of a tone of voice. It’s the person who walks around muttering that everyone is nothing more than lowlife and riff-raff. And the source of his anger is pride. He’s proud about his heritage, his money or his position. And he’s angry with everyone else because they don’t live up to his expectations.
This certainly describes the Pharisees of Jesus day because they saw themselves as being better than everyone else and they took great pride in letting everyone know how good they were. And even though there are no Pharisees left we certainly see their attitude in people who act as though they’re better than everyone else.
So, Jesus said; the guy with this attitude is going to have to give account of himself before the council or the Sanhedrin which means he’s going to be treated like a common criminal and it won’t be for his actions but for his attitude. So, the first guy is angry and his anger is unjustifiable and that’s bad but the second guy’s anger is contemptible and that’s even worse but the third guy is guilty of calling everybody a bunch of fools.
The terms for fool is ‘moros’ and it refers to a person’s morals. And this is the kind of person who spreads malicious lies about others in order to make others question the morals of the one they’re talking about and according to this verse; the severest judgment of all is reserved for the person who would attack someone else’s character.
Listen, long lasting anger is bad, contemptuous speaking is even worse but the one who would destroy a persons reputation is the most repulsive in the sight of God. And Jesus says; the murderer and the one who hates are one and the same. The only difference is found in the expression of their anger. You see; the angry person is as bad as murderer in the sight of God because both of them are attacking or attempting in some way or another to destroy one they’re mad at.
So, everybody gets angry but the question is; how do you deal with it? The first thing to do is discover the source. Some people can pinpoint the cause of their anger and some can’t. It might be just a simple expression of frustration. Maybe they can’t get ahead or see any way to fulfill their dreams and ambitions. Maybe things haven’t turned out the way they expected and they feel like a failure. I think most of the free-floating anger is simply a poor response to the problems of life by people who for some reason or another didn’t get what they wanted because most of the time, they wanted the wrong things.
There was a story in the news a while back about Captain Lisa Nowak. She was a female astronaut who was a very educated and skilled person who rose to the rank of captain in the Navy. The story said she drove from Houston to Orlando which is about a thousand miles and she did this to confront another female captain over an astronaut they worked with that she was in love with. After following this woman to her car, she said she just wanted to talk to her but she pepper-sprayed her and ran away. She said she had no intention of harming her but they found in her trunk, a steel mallet, a heavy knife and a BB gun.
The most bizarre aspect of the story is that she drove the entire thousand miles and didn’t have to stop because she wore a diaper. For some reason all this driving didn’t calm her down but for hours on end she got more and more angry and couldn’t wait to act on it. That’s what anger does to a person.
Listen, when anger is turned inward may cause hypertension, high blood pressure, or depression. And if you wrestle with this problem the scripture gives some insight in how to deal with it. First, we are to confess it as sin. In the beatitudes we have the quality of meekness mentioned and one commentator said, “The meek person is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.” So, when is it right to be angry? It’s never right to be angry when we are offended but it’s always right to be offended when someone else is abused.
As we study the gospels we see that Jesus never showed anger when people insulted, misused, abused or even when they crucified Him. But; He was angry at those who corrupted the temple so that people had no place to worship; He was angry at those who were insensitive to the poor and He was even angry with His disciples when they tried to keep little kids away from Him. His anger was a righteous anger and that meant He was angry at things that weren’t right.
When we’re angry because we don’t get our own way we need to confess it as sin. And if we’re really going to have victory over the sin of anger we need to confess it to God and also to those who have to put up with our anger. Admitting we’re wrong can be so humbling that we’ll go out of our way to change so we’ll never have to do it again.
So, first we confess it as a sin and then second, we need to ask the Lord to put a guard over our mouths. It was said of Julius Caesar that whenever he was angry he recited the entire alphabet before he said a word. You see, he was in control of his emotions rather than letting his emotions be in control of him. The scripture says we are to do the same thing in James 1:19-20 when it says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
So, when you feel the hair standing up on the back of your neck and your blood pressure is slowly rising, give yourself a time out. Think of a reason to walk away for a minute because as Proverbs 14:17 says, “A quick tempered man acts foolishly.”
I was watching a western on TV for a few minutes and there was about to be a gunfight between two men; and before they had a chance to draw their guns another guy stepped between them and asked one of them an obscure question. Well, he stopped and tried to figure out the answer and the two of them got so involved in the question that they simply walked away and forgot about the gunfight. And as absurd as that was, sometimes, all it takes is a little time away from the situation for us to see that it wasn’t worth making such a big deal about.
So, walk away and think about how you’re going to respond and ask yourself what affect your words are going to have. After all, is your goal to correct someone’s behaviour or just get them to see your point of view?
So, we confess our problems to the Lord; then we commit our tongue to Him and overall we control our temper rather than letting our temper get control of us.
Rather than thinking we’re exercising our power by blowing off steam Proverbs 16:32 says, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.” Listen, the powerful person controls his anger; he doesn’t let it control him. I like how someone said, “The angry person is easily manipulated because everyone knows the right buttons to push.”
Paul said, “Be angry, and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” Listen, don’t allow Satan use your anger to destroy your testimony.
Conclusion
“Thou shalt not kill” tells me life is a gift from God and only He has the right to take it away and He does through sickness, accident, old age, war or even capital punishment.
In the first four commandments we saw the root of our faith which is our relationship to God and in the last six we’re seeing the fruit of our faith which is our love for one another. And this commandment tells us we’re not to kill anyone physically or even emotionally and the opposite of that is giving them life; and that’s what the gospel is all about. And when we either lead someone to Jesus or help them to come to know Him we’re involved in their getting spiritual life which will last for the rest of eternity. And I can’t think of anything that would be more glorifying to the Lord.
There was a movie out a few years ago called "Rain Man" and it was about two brothers. One was a fast dealing kind of crooked guy and the other was autistic and he was extremely logical and remembered everything but he didn’t always make sense. Well, the crooked brother took his autistic brother from his special care home and they took this cross-country road trip where the crooked guy tried to rebuild a relationship they never had.
At one point the autistic brother got mad and started making notes of everything that took place and his brother got frustrated and grabbed him by the back of the neck and the autistic guy said, "Charlie Babbitt squeezed and pulled and hurt my neck" and he wrote it all down. And he kept a journal of everything his brother did wrong.
Now, listen, none of are crazy enough to actually keep a journal of things others have done to offend us, right? But; do you remember the last time someone did offend you? There’s your journal.
