Ten Words to Live By: Do not murder
Exodus 20: 14
Patter Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
8-31–2025
Erik and Lyle
On August 20th, 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were savagely murdered in their home. The brutality of the killing led police to initially suspect the wealthy couple had been killed by the mob.
Their sons, Erik and Lyle Menendez, were the first to find them and call 911. As the investigation progressed, the police noticed something strange about the brothers.
They discovered the brothers had already spent over $700,000 of their parents money on a Porsche, trips to the Caribbean, part ownership in a Buffalo Wildwings, private tennis lessons, three Rolex watches, and court side Knicks tickets.
Eventually, the brothers were arrested and tried and convicted and have spent the last 35 years behind bars.
In that time, they both got married to “fans” of theirs. Netflix produced a documentary entitled, “Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story” and they became celebrities with famous people asking for their release, including Kim Kardashian.
Just last week, they were both granted a parole hearing and many people thought they may be released. But, their behavior in jail and the savagery of the murder of their parents, led the parole board to slam the door shut on any hope of parole at this time.
They are not celebrities. They are cold blooded murderers who deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Review
We continue our series called, “Ten Words to Live By.” We know them as the “The Ten Commandments” although that name is never used in the Bible.
In Hebrew, this top ten list is known as the “Ten Words,” or Decalogue, and we find them in Exodus 20.
Pastor John Miller reminds us of three reasons the ten words were given:
* God is holy
* Man is sinful and we need a Savior
* Shows us how to live
They are less rules about what to do and tell us more about who God is to us:
1. One God - God is God.
2. No idols - God is Creator.
3. Revere His Name - God is holy
4. Remember to Rest - God is Rest
5. Honor Parents - God is Father
6. No murder - God is Life
7. No adultery - God is Faithful
8. No stealing - God is a Provider
9. No lying - God is Truth
10. No coveting - God is Sufficient
The ten words are divided into two groups. The first four cover our relationship with God. The last six detail our relationship with others.
Jesus was asked by a teacher of the Law what the greatest commandment was and He responded:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
The four commandments are how we love God with all that we are.
The second six commandments are how we love our neighbor.
Please turn with me to Exodus 20:12.
Prayer
What does this prohibit?
“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)
There are eight different Hebrew words for “to kill.” The one Moses uses here is relatively rare. The NIV gets it right when it translates it as “Do not murder.” You could also translate it as “assassinate” or slay.”
The word means “taking of an innocent life, the unlawful killing of a human being.”
This is about human life and not about killing animals for food.
We see this play out in the first family when Cain killed his brother Abel:
“Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Genesis 4:8)
It is includes
premeditated, intentional murder like the Menendez brothers or the shooter in Minneapolis at the Catholic Church this week
intentional but not premeditated murder like a spouse who kills because he has found evidence of unfaithfulness (crimes of passion
involuntary manslaughter (texting while driving and causing a fatal accident)
reckless homicide (drunk driving).
In America, 27,000 people are murdered each year.
When a death occurred accidentally, an ax head flew off and killed someone, God supplied cities of refuge where the person could go and be safe from the family that may want to get revenge.
It is murder in cold blood, manslaughter with premeditated rage, or negligent homicide resulting from recklessness or callousness.
This does not prohibit self-defense:
“If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed.” (Exodus 22:2-3)
It’s interesting that after the sun comes up and the thief can be seen, it becomes a different matter.
I have a friend who woke up in the middle of the night and watched a person walk past their bedroom door. He got up and confronted the man, (he is a very big guy), and the person was drunk and thought he was in his own house. My friend could have killed him and wouldn’t be charged. Thank God he didn’t.
This does not prohibit capital punishment:
And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.” (Genesis 9:6)
Paul wrote to the Roman Christians:
“But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. (Roman 13:4)
This does not prohibit what Christian theologians have termed “just wars” - undertaken by a legitimate government, for a worthy cause, with a force proportional to attack, against soldiers not civilians, after all other means of making peace have failed.
God is the giver of life, the sustainer of life, and God made man in His own image.
My friend Brian Bill writes:
?“Perhaps you’ve heard the Latin phrase Imago Dei, which means “Image of God.” This means every human being has inherent value independent of their utility or function, from conception until natural death. Human life is sacred to our Sovereign God because He is the giver and sustainer of life. Human beings belong to God, and we are accountable to Him if we take someone’s life.”
Thomas Jefferson made this clear in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
How does this commandment speak to our culture of death where kids will witness 8,000 murders on their screens by the time they are 18? I’d like to highlight three ways:
Suicide
Obviously, this commandment prohibits the taking of your life.
Last month, my son’s very good friend committed suicide. As I sat in the standing room only auditorium of First Baptist Fairbury, my heart broke for his family, friends, and my son. The sobbing, the anger, the questions, the sadness was soul crushing.
At the graveside, I encountered a young woman that I have known since she was little. She cried on my shoulder and admitted that she had thought about taking her life many times. I let her cry and then prayed for her.
In high school, a friend of mine committed suicide in the middle of the night. That next morning when I found out, my mom said, “I wish he had waited until morning.” When I asked why, she replied, “Because the sun always comes up.”
Pastor Kevin DeYoung writes,
“There is almost no topic more painful than suicide for those who have experienced it with family or friends.”
If you have ever experienced a suicide, you know the feelings of guilt, the questions about what you could have done to stop it, the overwhelming grief and anger.
Suicide rates are increasing, especially among the over 65 age group.
People who talk about and attempt suicide are not trying to “get attention.” They are grappling with the darkness that we all feel from time to time. Except in their case, it’s overwhelming.
When a client of mine once said he was being swallowed by darkness I said, “There was light at the end of the tunnel.” His reply chilled me to the bone, “That light is the headlights of an oncoming train.” In three weeks, he was gone.
I’ve dealt with depression my entire adult life. I’ve been to the darkness and I’ve dangled my soul on the edge of giving up. I literally almost didn’t survive what happened in Florida. I had become irrationally convinced that Maxine and the boys would be much better off with me.
But, thankfully, with medication, counseling, and the support of some amazing Christian friends and an even more amazing wife, I made it though.
Listen to me. You matter. You are the only you ever and God has good plans for you, even if you can’t see or feel it right now. The world would be less without you. We need you. Your family needs you. If you need help, reach out to me, to anyone.
Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus said that if you are tired, come to Him and He will carry you. Please, please, please, Don’t give up. There is hope. It’s not a place or a principle, hope is a Person, Jesus Christ.
* Abortion
In 1991, my friend Terri and I went to a political rally to stand up for life. Our signs simply read “Choose Life.” I told Terri, a little bit of a hot head, that we weren’t going to say a word, no matter what any says to us.
Our time there lasted less than five minutes. By that time, she was nose to nose with a lady, both of the screaming and cussing at each other.
I drug her away and put her in the car. We were quiet on the way home and she finally said, “I’m sorry. I get fired up about this issue.”
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)
Another obvious application of these verses is that life begins at conception, we are made in the image of God, abortion is murder, we need to be pro-life from the womb to the tomb.
John Calvin writing in the 1500s:
“For the fetus, though enclose in the womb of its mother is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life it has yet not begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a baby in the womb before it has come to light.”
One of my roles as a pastor is to help you think Biblically about contemporary issues. We need to make sure we are Biblically correct, not politically correct. Abortion is the murder of an unborn child. Even the leaders of Planned Parenthood agree with this now. But they would say that the rights of the mother overrule the rights of the fetus, which by the way is just the Latin word for “baby.”
Abortion is a Biblical, moral, and ethical issue, not a political one.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when confronting the evils of the Nazis wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is in itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
He was not silent as the Nazi’s murdered those deemed, “Life unworthy of life,” mentally ill, the disabled, the intellectually challenged, and the elderly.
He spoke up and it ultimately cost him his life.
We are called to speak up and speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” (Prov 24:11)
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Prov 31:8-9).
Erwin Lutzer, pastor of Moody Church for many years, writes,
“Abortion continues only because babies are not strong enough to fight back. Their cries are muffled in the sanitary surroundings of hospitals and abortion clinics. Someone has to fight their battles for them because they are helpless in their struggles…If the Christian church cannot unite in its opposition to abortion, it is highly unlikely that it can unite about anything else.”
This picture was taken in 1999, when doctors were performing surgery on Samuel Alexander Armas for spina bifida. During the surgery, he reached out of the womb and grabbed the doctor’s hand. This picture has been named the “Hand of Hope.”
We are called to swim against the flow of our culture.
A missionary couple in Africa faced this choice. She had contracted a disease that threatened her life and the baby’s and the doctors told her that she needed to abort the baby. She said no and delivered a healthy baby boy that they named Timothy.
We know him as Tim Tebow.
Tim and his mother told this story in a 2010 Super Bowl ad that caused enormous controversy, with commentators calling it a travesty and dangerous, demeaning, divisive, offensive, and political, simply because they were advocating for life.
But watching that night at a friend’s house was Susan Wood, who had just told her boyfriend that morning that she was pregnant. He demanded that she get an abortion and she consented. She walked to the Super Bowl party feeling totally alone in the world.
Tim Tebow was literally the only football player she knew and when the commercial came on, she was riveted to the screen.
She thought, “Tim Tebow talking to me.” She went to the website later and watched the story, and decided that she was keeping the baby. Her boyfriend left and never came back.
But Avita Grace is alive and well!
In this culture of death, we have to be willing, with truth and grace, to speak up on these issues.
Ultimately it’s about the Gospel. I don’t want to win arguments, I want to focus on making disciples.
I was born in 1968. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Since that time, 60 million of my generation have been murdered.
Approximately 1.2 million abortions each year in America
For every 1,000 live births, 200 babies are aborted.
The good news is that abortions are at an historic low, down a reported 4% from the previous year.
So what should we do?
* We must be consistent in our stance that we are pro-life from the womb to the tomb.
Encourage a young woman dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.
In our student ministry at my former church, one of our high school students got pregnant. She was 16 and scared and could have easily sought an abortion.
We threw her a huge baby shower and lavished grace and love on her. Several older people in the church asked me why our team would encourage such immoral behavior. I just smiled and said, “We are celebrating the fact that she made the courageous choice to keep the baby safe in her womb!”
Support those who chose to adopt. I’ll never forget watching a small group come around a wonderful family who was adopting and prayed, financially supported, and cheered them on every step of the way.
And share the Gospel with those who have suffered the trauma of abortion.
I’ll never forget looking back to a group of girls surrounding a friend of mine at the college outreach. She was crying and we celebrated as she committed her life to Christ that night.
A few weeks later, we were at her apartment playing games and I watched her slide off the coach onto the floor and curl up in a fetal position. She was weeping quietly. Several of us sat with her and let her cry.
I finally said, “Whatever it is, God loves you and can forgive you.”
She looked up at me and said, “I know God can forgive anything, but will he forgive me for killing my baby?”
The room went completely silent. I knew her well and didn’t know about this at all.
She had gotten pregnant and her boyfriend made it clear that she had to have an abortion. He drove her to the clinic and walked her in the room. It was the most traumatizing thing she had ever been through.
I looked back at her searching eyes and said, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
I then hugged her and told her that she will meet that little one one day and hear, “It’s okay momma. God took care of me.”
If you have had an abortion, I know that you experience trauma and shame but you can be forgiven.
Euthenasia
One more obvious application is physicians-assisted suicide, or euthanasia.
In the 1980s a doctor named Jack Kevorkian became infamous for helping over 130 people kill themselves. He was nicknamed, Dr. Death” and his motto was “dying is not a crime.”
He went to prison for murder, and when he got out continued to advocate for euthanasia. He was considered outside the mainstream of medical behavior.
In World War II, Dutch doctors refused the Nazi edict to kill all the terminally ill and elderly. Strikingly, modern-day Holland leads the way internationally in physicians assisted suicide.
God is the giver of life and He knows our birth dates and the day of our death:
“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)
We have no right to take another’s life and we have no right to take our own.
What about suffering? What about death with dignity?
Paul write that there is purpose in our pain:
“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Rom 8:16-17)
Joni Erikson Tada was paralyzed in a diving accident at 17 and is a world-known author, speaker, painter, and leader of a nonprofit called Joni and Friends.
I saw her speak and she said, “ There will be a day when these legs will work and I will run with freedom and joy. And I will use those legs to run to Jesus and fall at His feet and say thank you for the wheelchair! Without the wheelchair I would have never known you, loved You, and served you like I did!”
Not Me!
When we look at the Ten Words, I can freely admit that I’ve broken them all except this one. I bet you are the same way.
Yes, I’ve trusted in things other than God. Yes, I’ve used his name flippantly. Yes, there have been times when I haven’t rested in the finished work of Christ. I certainly didn’t honor my parents the way the commandment called me to.
But it’s easy to think this one doesn’t apply to us. I’ve never killed anyone. I’m not a murderer.
The Pharisees believed that. They were the good guys. But their obedience was only skin deep. It was all outward, many times for show.
Jesus applied the inside/outside principle to the commandments. He took it down a level deeper from behavior to belief, from action to attitude.
Regarding Cain killing Abel, Jen Wilken points out,
“If we look carefully, we find that his path to becoming a murderer did not start with plotting murder. It began with a far more ubiquitous sin. It began with being angry…Cain’s problem was not mere anger, but anger nursed, anger indulged, anger gratified.”
In the most famous sermon Jesus ever preached, the one we call the “Sermon on the Mount,” he applies this principle to the sixth commandment:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)
I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases these verses in The Message:
“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.” (Matthew 5:21-22, The Message)
Jesus knew the commandments and He knew that His hearers knew them as well.
He takes the commandment to the heart level. The word “racca” would have to be bleeped out in Hebrew society. It is saying that they are worthless, empty, blockhead. It is a word of contempt and reproach, with racist undertones.
This week at the US Open, after the Jelena Ostapenko / Taylor Townsend match, that Taylor won, the two got into a shouting match. Jelena said that Taylor had no education and no class. Basically, she said Racca!
There are several different words:
anger - this word has to do with heat. This is that feeling that you get when your face grows hot and your temper boils over.
rage - is the outward expression of this boiling over.
malice - the inner attitude of hate and wishing calamity on someone.
From road rage, to Karens verbally attacking people, to social media arguments, talking heads screaming at other on cable news, to gossip disguised as prayer requests, this culture is angry.
We don’t debate or dialogue, we want to destroy the person on the other side of the issue. Even in the church, how often do we use our words to build up rather than tear down?
Warren Wiersbe wrote:
“Anger is such a foolish thing. It makes us destroyers instead of builders. It robs us of freedom and makes us prisoners. To hate someone is to commit murder in our hearts (1 John 3:15)."
John wrote:
“…everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (I John 3:15)
Anger is a normal human emotion. As a counselor, I teach that anger is most often frustration over blocked goals. We all get angry.
That’s why Paul wrote, quoting Psalm 4:
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26-27)
Anger destroys relationships and angry words are like toothpaste out the tube.
"An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.” (Prov 29:22)
“Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.” (Proverbs 29:11)
There is a righteous rage that we should have toward sin, like Jesus in the Temple.
Pastor Steve Cole writes,
“Sinful actions always begin with unchecked sinful thoughts. Thus while most of us think that we are incapable of murdering someone, if we don’t deal with bitterness and anger, we’re feeding the root that grows into murder.”
Pastor Mike Fabarez gives us three questions to ask when our anger starts to boil over:
* I am easily offended?
“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” (Pro 19:11)
* Do I desire to “settle the score?”
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Rom 12:19)
* Can I let God deal with my enemies?
“To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:20-21)
If we could pass all of our words through the Ephesians 4:29 grid, I think that we would see significantly less conflict, especially in the church.
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Eph 4:29)
Jeffrey Dalmer
Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who dismembered and even ate some of his victims.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Pastor Roy Ratcliff received a call that would change his life. It was from another pastor telling him that a prisoner at the prison near him was requesting to be baptized. That prisoner’s name was Jeffrey Dahmer.
Roy was terrified as he went into the prison the first time to meet with Jeffrey. But after talking with him for a while, discovered that Jeffrey had been reading the Bible and had given his life to Jesus Christ. This wasn’t a jail house conversion to try to win sympathy with the courts. There would be no sympathy for someone like him.
Roy received permission to baptize Jeff and afterwards began discipling him. Jeff asked Roy if he thought that he should have been put to death for his crimes. Roy said yes but in Wisconsin there was no death penalty. He then asked, “Do you think I’m sinning by remaining alive?” They had many such deep conversations.
On November 28, 1994, Jeff was beaten to death by a mentally ill inmate. Roy had the opportunity to do his memorial service and give testimony to Jeff’s faith in Christ.
The response was understandable. Many people, including the victim’s families, wanted Jeff to burn in hell forever. Even a fellow pastor said to Roy, “Jeff’s salvation stretches my view of grace.”
Roy responded, “If Jeff stretches your view of grace, then it needs to be stretched. We all deserve hell. Jeff is an example of grace.”
Moses was a murderer. David was a murderer. Paul was a murderer. And so are you and and so am I.
J.I. Packer writes:
“We all have the capacity for fury, fear, envy, greed, callousness and hate, that given the right provocation, could make killers out of us all.”
You may not have murdered someone with your hands but we have have murdered with our mouth.
That’s point of the Ten Commandments and it’s really bad news. You and I can not keep these commandments. Not one. Ever.
The’s the point. These ten words reveal our absolute inability to be good and point to SomeOne who could and did meet all the requirements of the Law, Jesus Christ.
Ending Song: His Mercy is More
