Pastor Grant Brown's sermon on 'The Law of God (Part 11)' focuses on the sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder', as found in Exodus 20. He draws a connection between the violation of God's commandments in Genesis, particularly the acts of Adam and Eve and the murder of Abel by Cain, to the moral decay in contemporary society. Pastor Brown argues that the rejection of God's authority leads to the breakdown of societal structures, resulting in issues such as murder, euthanasia, and suicide. He emphasizes that these acts are an assault on the image of God and God’s likeness in humanity. The sermon also discusses the interconnectedness of the first and second tables of God's law, stressing that a violation of one's duty towards God inevitably leads to a breach in duty towards one's neighbor. Pastor Brown underscores the necessity of restoring a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, asserting that peace in society can only be achieved through repentance and faith in Jesus. The sermon concludes by highlighting the importance of valuing life and adhering to God's commandments to avoid societal chaos and moral decline.

Exodus chapter 20. And we'll be keying in on verse 13 this morning. But let's begin in verse 1. Let's stand together as God now speaks. Hear now the word of our God beginning in verse 1 of Exodus chapter 20.

Then God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you you shall not murder may God bless the reading in the preaching of this is word Amen. Please be seated. Well, return with me for just a moment in your minds to The beginning of the Bible, the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter 1. Just think about that for just a moment.

In the garden, God made them male and female. In the image of God, He made them. And yet in Genesis chapter 3, the image bearers that God had made broke his law. His image bearers forsook what the Creator had told them and they listened to the creature Satan rather than the Creator. And it took of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and they ate it.

And you and the world with them plunged into the curse." That's Genesis chapter 3. They were put out of the garden. And in the very next chapter, Genesis chapter 4, right after the fall, their children appear on the scene. And what is it that happens with their children? Do you remember?

Murder. Cain murders Abel. Now I want you to get this. In the Garden of Eden, in Genesis chapter 3, the first table of God's moral law, our duty towards God, that first table of God's law is broken when Adam and Eve bring sin into the world. They disobey God.

Immediately after that, right after we see the violation of the first table of God's law what comes on its heels Genesis chapter 4 a violation of the second table of the law, our duty towards neighbors, starting with who? Starting with what? Starting with the household. Parents and children, and murder. So Cain and Abel, brothers, one brother Abel, listens to his parents and brings what is acceptable in God's side for a sacrifice.

The other brother Cain does not honor his father's instruction. The other brother Cain does not listen and obey. And so he brings an offering that is not acceptable in the sight of God for a sacrifice. It's a violation of the fifth command. Anger rises up in Cain's heart, so he takes his brother out into a field.

What does that man do? He commits the very first murder. The murder of someone in his very own home. That's a blatant violation of the fifth and sixth commandment, the first two commandments, of the second table of God's moral law. Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt not murder.

So in Genesis chapter 3, we see a violation of the first table of God's law the first four commandments the vertical relationship of God fractured by sin And immediately the horizontal relationship with neighbor, the second table of God's law, is fractured by sin. I mean, it comes out even before Genesis chapter 4. We have Adam blaming his wife, one of his children not honoring Adam's instruction. And that child becomes angry and goes into a field and kills his brother. The first table, I just need you to see this, the first table and the second table of God's moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, they are absolutely tied together.

It's been this way since the beginning. It's been this way since the beginning. It's been this way since the beginning. So do you want to know why all of our institutions are failing and why we as a society are more and more and more confused about what life is? The reason for that, the answer to that question is simple.

Because we reject the authority of God, just like our first parents did in the garden, we reject who He is. We reject this, which immediately spills out into this. Has to. It's been that way since sin entered the world. You reject God, you reject your parents, and you reject life.

When we reject the authority of God that immediately spills out into the fracturing of households, the devaluing of human life, so much so actually that we kill our elderly parents in this nation because they're a nuisance to us. And we kill our children in the womb because they're a nuisance too. Bookends of death. How do you get there? How do you get to a nation where it's bookended by death, murder?

Well, you get there by rejecting God. You reject God, and again, the rejection of God vertically fills out horizontally so that the very image bearers that God has given to us in our homes become the ones we murder. If you reject the first table, the second table has to fall down next. It's coming down next. So friends if we want any hope to get out of this pit called secularism and insanity in our nation, in our land, this is where we must start.

With God. We start with God. We need Jesus Christ. We need Jesus the God man, the second and final Adam to deal with our idolatry. Yes, we need that individually.

We need conversion. But not just individually, also covenantally as a land, as a people, as a county, as a state, and as a nation to the ends of the world. We need the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse us from our evil. We need him to cleanse us from our murderous and rebellious whoring hearts to restore us covenantally back to God. And if we would but humble ourselves and beat our breasts as a people and cry out for mercy against the lawgiver, the lawgiver is also the life giver.

If we would cry out for mercy towards the one we sinned against, the law giver. He is also the life giver. And he will bring us peace. It's a promise. But it must first start with peace with God.

You must have restoration with God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. And when that's happened, when vertical peace with God through the Savior Jesus has been worked in us, starting in this church, He will then grant us peace in our lands this way. He will restore our lands when this gets restored. The vertical piece that comes from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that vertical piece then gets bent towards a nation and you have peace in life you have to start though with bowing the knee to Jesus starts with this nation with this state with this county, with this town declaring Jesus as Lord and there is none other. The vertical peace will come out in the family, the fifth commandment, and in the value of human life, the sixth commandment, and all the way down the line through the second table of God's law.

But you cannot, you will not have peace in the home and peace in the streets. You will not have a nation with fewer divorces and broken homes. You will not have a nation with fewer murderers and less suicide, fewer thefts, less covetousness. You will not have an honest land. You will not have a contented land until you and your neighbor and your neighbor's neighbor, until we as a people starting with this church will love the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength starting with the confession of our sins.

We must have Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior so that we might then love our neighbor as ourselves. If we do that we will live long in the land that God has given to us. So Erlum must have Jesus Christ. You want peace in Earlham? You want sanity in Earlham?

It must be Jesus Christ. Or you'll end up with chaos. Erlem and Madison County, Dallas County don't want to leave you out. Iowa, America must bow to need King Jesus. Civil magistrates must serve King Jesus.

Or all we will get is Genesis chapter 4 fracture families broken homes covetousness rampant immorality and murder you won't live long in the land when what you do in the land is kill each other. So this morning, we turn our attention to the sixth commandment, A commandment that stems all the way back to the beginning. Verse 13, you shall not murder. Now, the reason you shouldn't murder is simple. Why shouldn't you murder someone?

Because God says so. Because God forbids it in His law. And that reason alone is sufficient, right? God says so. God says so.

So love for God, first table of the law, comes out in love for neighbor, second table, so I'm not interested in murdering my neighbor. God says so. Now that reason alone is sufficient. But why? Why does God say no to murder.

Because taking the lives of image bearers in the form of murder is an assault on God. It's an assault on the Imago Dei, the image of God, which means it's an attack on God himself. Genesis chapter one, verse 27, God created male and female. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them.

Male and female, he created them in his image. So to quote Pastor David Mitzinmacher, quote, this command is grounded in the doctrine of the Imago Dei that every human being is made in the image of God. To murder another person is not merely to commit an act of violence. It is to assault God's own likeness in the world. Genesis 9-6 makes this explicit.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. The dignity of human life is not derived from age, utility, or intelligence. It is bestowed by God at creation." So to murder someone is to seek to erase the image of God in the world that God put his image in. Which means you are literally kicking against God himself and the way God made his world when you entertain man a murderer So what was the mandate given to the first image bearers Adam and Eve what was the mandate Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. That was the command.

God decreed fill the earth, multiply the earth with my image. But instead of multiplying his image through advancing and protecting life what do you do you subtract from life in a way that God hates when you murder. And that is treason against the Creator. So murder's a big deal. Throughout the Old Testament, the penalty for premeditated murder was death.

Genesis 9, six, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed for in the image of God he made man. Exodus 21 12, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. Leviticus 24 17, If a man takes the life of another human being, he shall surely be put to death. Numbers 35-31, you shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death. No, he shall surely be put to death.

It's not confusing. Why? Why should the murderer be put to death? Because murder is an assault on God's own likeness in God's own world by the creatures that he put on this world to preserve the sanctity of life and not to destroy it. We'll say that again.

Murder is an assault on God's own likeness, God's own world by the creatures that he put on his world to preserve the sanctity of life, not destroy. So murder is a very big deal to God. And because it's a big deal to God, it should be a big deal to you. Which means you need to know what it is. You need to know what murder is.

You need to know what is murder. Well, the most concise way to put it is murder is unlawful killing. To kill unlawfully. So what are the ways that men and women kill unlawfully? Homicide.

Now, homicide in a general sense is a human being killing another human being. Please listen to me now. Let's be really clear here. Not all homicide is murder. There are accidental homicides that aren't murders.

There are God-ordained reasons for why humans might kill other humans. Capital punishment, war, self-defense. God doesn't categorize those things as murder and we're gonna talk about that after I get back with the baby. Tried to fit it all in. Good.

We're going to talk about the God-orgained reasons for killing in Part 2 in June. What we're talking about this morning right now is the kind of homicide that is murder. The intentional, malice in forethought, or the intentional in a moment of passion, with malice in your heart, taking a human being's image bearer's life in a way that God has forbidden. That's what we're talking about. And that's precisely what came to Abel, yes?

Yes. That's precisely what the men of Benjamin did through sexual abuse that led to death of the Levites wife and judges 19 That's murder deserves death This is precisely what Jezebel did in the murder of Naboth and first Kings chapter 21 Do you remember that? Ahab couldn't have Naboth's vineyard. He's the king. So anyway, like a little baby, he cries home to his wife.

He goes home, whining to his wife, and his wife, Jezebel, has Naboth killed. Oh, you want the vineyard? I'll give you the vineyard. I'll get it for you. I just want you to think about that particular narrative in 1 Kings chapter 21.

King Ahab literally is the king. He has so, so much, but it's never enough, right? And so he wants one of his subjects vineyards and Naboth he won't sell it to him And so Ahab is upset he goes and whines to his wife, his wife says I'll hatch a plot that ends up in the murder of Naboth and Ahab gets the vineyard. Now I just want you to think about that narrative. You go home and read it, 1 Kings 21.

But in terms of God's law, I want you to think about that. Listen to me. Listen to me. In terms of God's law, just think about that murder that happens in 1 Kings 21. You might just think, violation of the sixth commandment.

And that is. But just think about all that's involved in that narrative. Ahab covetous. That's a violation of the 10th commandment. Jezebel has evil men bear false witness about Naboth.

That's a violation of the 9th commandment. Those men say that Naboth violated the third commandment, blaspheming the name of God, so that she could murder him, a violation of the sixth commandment. You see all the violations there. That whole murderous account in 1 Kings 21 is filled with violations of God's law, which is exactly what you get by the way, with sin. Sin like disobedience to parents, these sins like thievery and false testimony, murder, these things hang together.

When you have a land full of disobedience to parents, you got a land full of murder, you got a land full of murder, you got a lot of adultery, when you got adultery, you got thievery, when you got thievery, you got false testimony, when you got covetousness, you got it all. You don't just get one. These sins love to hang out with their cronies. They love it. Murderers, listen to children, listen to this.

Murder's best friend is disobedience to parents. Ask any murderer, ask any murderer with your parents permission. How did it start? It started in the home. It started in the home.

I had anger towards my parents. One day, that anger goes to another level. And you murder. You're going to be hard pressed to find a narrative in the Bible with murder in it that doesn't have all the other trappings of God's law being violated as well. You don't just have isolated incidents.

And God isn't impressed by fancy workarounds either You might think you can get around some of this right? I didn't pull the trigger Technically, I wasn't the one who killed him. I might have set things up. I might have maneuvered the situation so that I knew he could die But I wasn't really the one who did the killing not technically I get out on the technicality No, it's still a violation of the Sixth commandment when what you do results in the murder of an image bearer of God that's precisely what King David did to Uriah the Hittite after David's affair with Bathsheba remember that again sin loves the company of other sins, doesn't it? Think about David, right?

Lost, murdered. Lying, false witness. I mean, just, they hang out together. And so, David wasn't the one with the sword, but David, with malice and forethought, had Uriah killed in battle, and in 2 Samuel chapter 12, God calls that unequivocally murder. Murder.

David murdered Uriah. So the sixth commandment forbids homicide in that way. In that way. Intentional malice in your heart, but it also forbids homicide by negligence. Negligent homicide.

You ever heard that word? It just makes me sound like a legal scholar up here. Negligent, okay, it's bad. Deuteronomy 22, eight, if you don't build your house in a safe way, God says, and someone is killed due to your negligence in the building, you bring blood guilt upon yourself. You break the sixth commandment.

You were negligent in what you knew to do what was right. You knew if I don't do it this way someone will die. They die. Guilt's on you. Exodus chapter 21, if an ox scores an image bearer to death, the ox must die.

But if the owner of the ox knew that the ox had this kind of habit, knew that the ox posed a very considerable threat to his neighbor, and didn't care and said, I'll let him roam Free. I know he'll probably gore my neighbor. When that happened, God says, the owner must die. Because that's murder. Negligence.

The owner knew better and didn't care. That's a violation of the Sixth Commandment and the death of the owner is required. So those are the kinds of homicide that are murder. But murder is more than homicide. Murder is also suicide.

Murder is also suicide. Suicide. Self-murder. You do not have the right to murder yourself any more than you have the right to murder someone else why why do you not have the right to murder yourself any more than you have the right to murder someone else we hear it all the time when we go to the doctor your body your choice kind of stuff why is it wrong to murder yourself you're not hurting anybody are you okay well number one yeah you are you're destroying your family You're destroying the church that you belong to. You're destroying your land that you belong to.

But ultimately you bear the image of God, same as every other human being, so to murder yourself is just as much treason against God as murdering someone else. To murder yourself is just as much an assault on God's own likeness in God's own world when you do it to you as when you do it to someone else. It's murder. It's forbidden in the sixth commandment. And listen, again, I'm not talking here about someone sacrificing themselves in war or engaging in an act of self-defense for your family that you know will probably result in your own death.

No, that's heroic. That's precious in God's sight. That's ultimately what Jesus Christ himself did for you. He gave his life for you. It's not suicide.

The giving of a life is a substitutionary sacrifice. Take me instead. It's what Adam should have done. It's what Jesus did for his bride. It's not suicide, that's glory.

It's a glorious thing. Again, we're gonna discuss war, sacrifice, and self-defense next time. What we're talking about here is self-murder, which is sin. So the question that pops up all the time is this. This is a very delicate, sensitive question.

Not a question that I really want to talk about. It's a question that I've had to wrestle through as a teacher in the classroom for a decade. The question is what happens then when a Christian commits suicide? Or put it differently, can a Christian commit suicide? Well ask the same question about all of God's law.

Can a Christian murder someone else? Can a Christian commit adultery? Can a Christian bear false testimony? Can a Christian steal? Can a Christian covet?

The answer is, He shouldn't. The answer is, it should break his heart. The answer is, that's not who he is. He's not a covetor, he's not a thief, he's not a luster, he's not an adulterer, it's not who God made him to be. So he shouldn't.

The heart of the regenerate, the one who's been given a new heart in Jesus, the one who's been given the Spirit of God, it should devastate them to violate God's law in these ways, including self-murder. But is it possible? Is it possible? Is it possible for a Christian man or Christian woman to sin like this in these ways? Yes.

And is it wrong to wonder about that person's salvation when they sin in these ways? Of course it's not wrong to wonder about their salvation. Of course it's not wrong to wonder because the law of God has been violated and you didn't get to see any repentance that's the killer part didn't mean that that's the bad part of suicide you don't get to see repentance don't get to see confession to make suicide more difficult than any other violations of God's law when it comes to knowing. Because the final act of someone was sin. And so it makes you question what was in their heart.

The last thing I know they did was sin. So it's not wrong. It's right. Have a little question. But you have to, with the question in your heart, you have to get this too.

As you question, as you wonder, don't you ever forget the almighty and precious truth of the gospel, that the grip that saved the Christian, floundering in sin, is not their grip, but the grip of Christ. The deed, the deed that determines their salvation was not their suicide or their adultery or their theft. No, it was the deed done by Jesus Christ 2, 000 years ago on a cross and an empty tomb by which He brings sinners, though they stumble and fall all the way to glory. It's Christ. And the difficulty again with suicide is we don't get to see any repentance.

We don't see any confession. And so we don't know. We don't know like we could know if someone murdered another person and then returned to the Lord or someone committed adultery but confessed and beat his breast and pled for the mercies of God and Christ, then we could know, at least a little better, right? Could know a little better than we do when suicide happens. And so the 1 John 3.15 is true.

No murderer has eternal life abiding in him. But we don't say, we do not say as some do, that therefore suicide leads only to hell. It might. It might lead to hell. So don't do it.

You got a regenerate heart. If Christ is in you, you long to love him. How? By keeping his commandments. And so the idea of self-murder, you run away from that Christian.

You run away from it. You forsake that because you love your Savior Jesus and even though life gets really, really, really hard, the call from Jesus is to flee, is to flee from self-harm because there is more righteousness, there is more grace, There is more comfort, there is more peace, there is more hope, there is more promise in Jesus Christ the righteous one than there is gloom, doom, depression, and unfaithfulness in you. There is more faithfulness in Him than there is devastation around you. There is an empty tomb and it's still empty. Still empty.

So don't tell me there isn't hope for the worst, and for the most depressed, and the most distressed. He knows the way out of the grave. He knows the way out of the grave. So in a moment of weakness, a Christian man, a Christian woman, not in their right mind, a Christian might commit the sin of suicide and break the sixth commandment. And I just need you to hear this.

This is not the unforgivable sin. God knows what is in their heart. He is the giver of eternal life. He is the giver of new hearts. He's the perfect judge.

And he will always do what is right. So you trust him. You trust him. We trust him. But as we trust him, at the same time we don't get confused because it's just not at all confusing on whether such a thing like suicide ought to be done or not.

It's not confusing. Suicide is a sin. And if you're okay with sin, beloved, if you're okay with any sin in your life, beware. Beware. Self-murder is a sin and is rampant in our land.

Right now in America, you know this, right now in America, the average daily suicide count is over 130 image bearers per day in our land. Now, That's 130 image bearers who commit murder against themselves and against God. If you do the math, I double checked it, I think it's right. That's one murderer every 11 minutes. One murderer every 11 minutes.

Every 11 minutes, a man or a woman has killed themselves in America. When I'm done with the sermon, over four people have killed themselves. Who am I kidding? Five. It's just crazy.

And part of that is because we don't have a grasp of the Christian Sabbath. Part of that is where there is no rest, there is no peace. Where there is no first table to the law, there is no second table of the law. You're going to have death in a land that rejects God. We're going to continue to see suicide rates sky high until we return to Jesus in our land.

So if you love your neighbor, and you love our land, preach Jesus. Preach Jesus. Conversion, repentance, confession of sins, when Jesus, peace with God gets restored, we will see a change in these things. And so we have a land that forsakes the gathering of God's people, it forsakes the rest that is found in Jesus Christ. We have a land that has no peace.

So suicide becomes rampant. And it's not just suicide. So does euthanasia. So does euthanasia. That's suicide's twin brother, euthanasia.

Euthanasia is the intentional killing, the murder, of a person whose life has been deemed not worthy of continuing. Euthanasia is the intentional killing, the murder, of a person's life who has been deemed not worth continuing in life. In other words, euthanasia is assisted suicide. It's typically reserved for the elderly, though not all the time. It's also reserved for the disabled or those deemed terminally ill.

So here are the buzzwords. Let me give you three phrases that typically get thrown around when we talk about euthanasia. Three buzzphrases. Dying with dignity, dying with dignity, quality of life, and burden to society. Say those again.

Dying with dignity, quality of life, and burden to society. Now those are the buzzwords, those are the reasons why we as a people in America should assist people in murdering themselves. You got it? Those are the reasons given why you are told help people kill themselves. Number one, dying with dignity.

A terminal diagnosis is given, and so instead of facing the prospect of dying from disease, I'll just head over to Dr. Kovorkian, he'll give me a pill, I'll lie down on my sofa, I'll die on my own terms with dignity. Number two, quality of life. My quality of life is not what it used to be, perhaps some injury, perhaps some disease has taken it away from me. I'm not content to live apart from that quality of life that I used to enjoy, so help me commit murder.

Number three, usually toward the elderly and the disabled. They're a burden to society. Too expensive to care for them. You know, it would just be better to simply put them to death rather than take on the burden of those who are aged or disabled. Don't you know we've got more important things to do?

All of that is evil. Wicked. Not one bit of that comes from the mouth of God. That comes hissing in your ear from the evil one. So let's go back through that list.

Number one, you don't get to define dignity. God does. Dignity is what he gave you at the moment of your conception. Dignity is found up in you being an image bearer of Almighty God, knit together, preciously so, by the hands of Almighty God in your mother's womb. That's dignity.

An image bearer of God, dying with dignity, is honoring the image of God, not trying to destroy it. And everybody looked over here. My brother was trying to be helpful and move around, but everybody looked that way. So look back at me, I need you to hear this line. Dying with dignity is not destroying the image of God.

Dying with dignity is honoring the image of God, not trying to destroy it. You got it? Alright, you just weren't looking at me, so I wanted to make sure you got it. Quality of life. That's just so big.

That's so big. I remember it in public school, teaching at government school, and that just people just being wonky on dignity no clue what dignity means you're an image bearer of God full stop to change everything about the way you have the rest of your conversation. Number two, quality of life. Three times Paul asked for the thorn in his flesh to be removed from him. Three times.

Lord, take this injury, take this disease take this lousy thing away and three times good the Lord said No My grace is sufficient for thee my powers me perfect in your weakness Number three the elderly and the disabled are a burden to society says who? Not God. I love this verse. Say it all the time. Proverbs 20, 29, the glory of young men is their strength, right?

But that's just half the verse. What's the second half? Don't quote just the first half. The glory of young men is their strength and the glory, the honor of old men is their gray hair. The glory of young men is their strength, and the glory, the honor of old men is their gray hair.

The glory of young men is their strength, but the glory, the honor of old men is their gray hair. You start killing your gray hairs? You start murdering your sages? You get a land with no glory. A land with no honor.

A burden? How are we talking about glory and honor being burdens? That's how far down we fall. Glory and honor are burdensome? You're our life support as a nation.

You start killing your gray hairs, no wonder you can't tell what a woman is. You lose all sense. You can't tell what glory is. So stop listening to the world and its so-called wisdom. They don't know what a woman is so you think they know anything else you know you think do you think they know anything about glory they can't tell you what the glory of the glorious so stop listening to what they think about glory they don't know diddly squad about think about this The world thinks about a cross and a dying savior hanging there on a tree.

Doesn't get himself off the tree. Breeds his last. Offers up his spirit for the sins of the world. And this is what they think about that. Foolish.

Weak. It's not what I call powerful. It's not what I call strong. Look at it. You're sitting there.

You're laying there. Weak, ridiculous foolishness. Why do they think that? The Bible says because they're perishing. But to those of us being saved across a dying Savior, hung there for you, hung there for your sins, that your sins might be completely dealt with.

The power of your sin severed. A dying Savior on a cross hanging there is the very power of God. It is the very definition of glory if you're a Christian. There is glory going on in Calvary Because by that sacrifice, by that what the world calls weak, by that is the way that the world ultimately is saved. What the world calls foolish is the very power that is even right now making all things new.

That is even right now at work to put every enemy under the feet of Jesus so that one day in this world that calls those things foolish one day the glory of Christ will so cover the earth as far as the waters cover the sea that's power that's glory and is foolish to the world. Foolish to the world. Think about Chronicles of Narnia. Children. Chronicles of Narnia.

Can you Raise your hand children if you've read it. All right, if your child is not raising their hand, parents, I want to rebuke you publicly, but I just did. In that, I'm going to ruin it for you if you haven't read it, sorry. At the end of that story, in the line in which in the wardrobe, Aslan steps in the place of Edmund, right? And the evil queen can't believe it.

You will take the place of Edmund. Of course I'll take you Aslan. Instead I'll just kill the king of the world. I'll kill him. They mock him and they jeer him and they think, look how weak he is.

They shave his mane. Look how weak he looks. Look how horrible he looks. Such a weak thing. Like a lamb led to the slaughter.

And in that moment, it's just mockery. And this looks like wow, yeah, the gospel, Aslan is weak. He dies. The table that he dies on is broken. He comes up alive roaring with a mane flowing, and he ends up destroying the white witch.

And you're left wondering, the kids are wondering, how did that happen? How could you? It looks so weak, it looks so foolish, it looks like you lost. And Azzan says, the witch didn't know the deeper magic. The witch didn't know the deeper power.

All she was using was just vain definitions of glory. I knew of a greater glory, the kind of glory by which I win the whole world. The kind of glory that swallows up the white witch and her vainglory. That's exactly what he did. He starts breathing on stone statues, turning to stone, and they come to life.

He wins the world. It's foolishness to the world, but power to those that have eyes to see. Think about 1 Corinthians chapter 1, beginning in verse 26. Consider your calling, brethren. There were not many wise according to the flesh.

You were not mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before God but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. I say all of that to say, young men, stop listening to the world.

And instead, use your glory, use your strength, and the way that God has ordained you to use it. Use your glory to serve the glory that is the agent. Use your glory to fight for life. To fight for those being pressured to end their lives prematurely. To fight with their glory for the unborn.

To use your glory to give yourself to sustaining and promoting and preserving life. Young men, real men, love life. Real men changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ know that what was foolishness to the world is the very power of God, it is the very power that saved them, it is the very power that will bring the world to its knees and will cover the earth one day. Real men know that. Real men have been given everlasting life.

And so when they read the Six Commandments, they know that it does not merely man, it does not merely forbid murder. It does forbid murder, but real men know it does not merely forbid murder. It also requires every lawful endeavor to preserve it. Real men know that. So when it comes to those who are elderly or terminally ill or disabled, young people, young men particularly, use your glory to multiply that glory in honoring your parents and not murdering them.

And if you do that, the promise is you will live long in the land when you obey the fifth commandment through the sixth. Makes sense. You won't live long in the land when you kill those in the womb and those near the end of their life. You just you're not going to live long. Now we're not talking here in case anybody's confused, we're not talking here of going home on hospice and preparing to die.

It's not euthanasia. We aren't talking here of being offered a new treatment that might give you another year or another few months but the side effects are ghastly and nightmarish and the odds are so low and so you refuse the treatment and you prepare for glory that is not you for the measure. That's staring death in the face and in the hope of Jesus saying all you can do is usher me face to face with my sin. So there is a way to end the treatment. There is a way to say no more treatment without violating the six commandments.

There is a way to do that when, number one, you embrace the sanctity of life. Number two, you understand that dignity is not defined by disability but the amago de. Number three, that the presence of aging, that the presence of gray beards and silver hairs, that their presence is evidence not of a land burdened but of a land blessed by God to a thousand generations. A land full of life. That's the mark of God's blessing.

Lord willing we will return again to this commandment because I've just barely scratched the surface. But I'm going to have to wait until after a baby. Lord willing, let's pray. Father, thank you for this your word. We thank you for the Imago day.

We thank you for the wonder of being adopted into your household through the shed blood and imputed righteousness of your son. We thank you for the promise of making us look more and more like your son. And Father, I ask that this sermon and its exhortation to love life, I pray that it would work towards that end. That this your people at Crossroads may have life and have it abundantly. And I ask these things in His name, the name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.