In Part 12 of his sermon series on 'The Law of God,' Pastor Grant Brown explores the Sixth Commandment, 'Thou shalt not murder,' emphasizing its profound implications beyond physical acts of killing. He explains that murder is an assault on the image of God and covers various forms, including homicide, suicide, euthanasia, and abortion, which are all seen as violations of God's law. Pastor Brown highlights biblical examples such as Cain's murder of Abel and Jezebel's actions against Naboth to illustrate prohibited forms of homicide. He emphasizes that the commandment requires not only refraining from physical acts of murder but also harboring hateful anger in one's heart, as explained by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Pastor Brown also addresses societal issues, linking high suicide rates and the acceptance of euthanasia to a lack of adherence to the Christian Sabbath and the neglect of the rest and peace found in Jesus Christ. Additionally, he discusses lawful exceptions to the commandment, such as accidental deaths, capital punishment, self-defense, and just wars, underscoring the importance of protecting life and ensuring justice according to God's law. The sermon concludes with a call to repentance and faith, urging believers to uphold the sanctity of life and lead their communities in prayer and action against practices like abortion.

Hear now the word of our God. 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 four 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 and now the preaching of this, his perfect word.

The sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder. So, what is murder? Well, four weeks ago, we began by answering this question. What is murder and what did we see? Well ultimately Murder is an assault on the image of God and therefore an assault on God 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 that God himself made the world when you entertain murder.

And murder comes in various forms. Homicide. Now this word can be confusing. This is a human killing another human. And not all forms of homicide are murderous, but the Sixth Commandment forbids the kind of homicide that Cain did to Abel in Genesis chapter 4.

And Jezebel did to Naboth in 1 Kings 21. The sixth commandment forbids the murder, the homicide, that David committed against Uriah in his affair with Bathsheba. That's the kind of homicide that God prohibits. The Hebrew word for murder there, in verse 13 of your text, is rotsa. You can say it a couple different ways.

But it means manslaying, to dash to pieces, could be translated homicide. And it includes not just murder in the homicide sense, but also negligent murder, negligent homicide. So for example, Deuteronomy 22 verse 8, If you are negligent in the construction of your home, that will result, if you're negligent in the construction of your home and it results in death, that's murder. Exodus chapter 21, negligence in keeping your livestock, that leads to death, well that's murder because if you knew that your ox was prone to gore-ing people and you didn't care you said ah who cares and you let your ox into your neighbor's land and your neighbor comes upon the ox that you knew gored people and he gores your neighbor and your neighbor dies that blood is on your hands according to God. Negligent homicide.

You knew better. But that's not all that God considers murder. Suicide is also a form of murder prohibited in the Sixth Commandment. And again we've spoken about this so I'm just giving you a brief recap. It has been a month.

Right now in America, there is one suicide, there is one self-murder every 11 minutes. And part of that sin that is rampant here in our land is because we don't have a grasp of the Christian Sabbath. And where there is no rest, there is no peace. And we're going to continue to see high suicide rates, sky-high suicide rates in this land until we return to the worship of Jesus in our land. That's what we'll see.

And so we have a land right now, we have a county, we have a state and a nation that forsakes in large part the gathering of God's people, forsakes the rest found in Jesus Christ in his gospel and therefore we have a land that has no peace. And so suicide becomes rampant and so does euthanasia which is suicide's twin brother. Euthanasia. And this was the final kind of murder that we looked at four weeks ago before the baby came. Euthanasia.

This is assisted suicide, assisted self murder, helping someone kill themselves. Now typically this is reserved for the elderly, for the disabled, the terminally ill. Why? Why help people kill themselves? Why is this such a thing?

Here's the answer. Advocates for euthanasia say it's dignified. And the elderly and the disabled and the terminally ill, ultimately they just pose a great burden upon society. So Assisted suicide promotes dignity and lessens the burden on society so that you don't have to care for the silver hairs in your land. That's the logic.

So what does God say about that logic? Well regarding dignity, God says in his perfect word, I gave you dignity the day I crafted you in your mother's womb The day I made you an image bearer You were given dignity. So God says to us Don't you dare define? What dignity is Don't you dare redefine what dignity is. Made in the image of God, that's dignity.

And what does God say about being a burden? He says in Proverbs 20, 29, and he says both parts of Proverbs 20, 29, what's he say there? The glory of young men is his strength, and the glory, the honor of old men is their gray hair. The glory of young men is their strength and the glory and honor of old men is their gray hair. So, put it all together, if you start murdering your gray hairs, when you start murdering your sages, you get a land with no glory.

You get a land with no honor. A people and a land with no glory and no honor. And that's exactly the kind of nation, that's exactly the kind of people with no glory and no honor that decides We want to kill our own children. Of course you get there, which is the next form of murder forbidden in the Sixth Commandment. And now we enter into a territory we have not entered into when talking about the Sixth Commandment, Abortion.

Abortion. Abortion is the shedding of innocent blood, the blood of children in the womb. And it is an abomination to the Lord. Friends, it will destroy us as a town, as a county, as a state, and as a nation if we do not rid ourselves of this scourge. So when you kill your elderly and when you kill your children as a nation, guess what happens?

You don't live long in the land. You get a nation with stage four cancer. When you bookend your land with murder from children in the womb to the elderly when a people have murder as their book ends from beginning of life to end of life that's a people on life support because you can't live long in the land when all you do in the land is kill each other. Pretty obvious. Abortion.

Psalm 139, verses 13 through 16. Precious text here. Listen to Psalm 139. For you, God, formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes, God, have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them. Those verses in Psalm 139 and there are others in the Bible but those verses that I just read infallibly declare the personhood of every single child in the womb from conception.

Those verses declare infallibly the personhood of every single baby in every single womb from conception. For you formed my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God declares the fertilized egg in a womb, A person.

A person. An image bearer of God who is precious in his sight. So what does the sixth commandment forbid then? If it forbids the murder of image bearers, the sixth commandment forbids the murder of image bearers in the womb from conception. So listen to this, it's no coincidence, hear me on this, it's no coincidence that the sixth commandment comes on the heels of the fifth commandment.

Children, honor your father and mother. What's the reason given to children to honor their father or mother? You remember, it's the first commandment with a promise, so that, I've been saying it a lot, your days may be prolonged in the land that God's given to you. You can read that there in verse 12. But we want death so bad as a nation that We don't even give our children the chance to honor their parents as a nation.

We just murder them before they come out. There's no way, listen to this, as a people, as a nation, as a state, there is no way for the blessing of the fifth commandment to happen when you're murdering the very conduit by which that blessing will come. So men, Men particularly, you and I must step up. Men, if we want our children and our children's children and our children's children's children to live long in this land, and boy I do, that our land must be rid of the scourge called abortion. We must protect life.

This is required in the sixth commandment. Sometimes you read verse 13 and you think it merely forbids murder, but implicit in the command is the positive, you must preserve and protect life. We must insist that in this land there will be no more child sacrifice. There will be no more children offered to Molek in Iowa. So men, child sacrifice is going on in your county and in your state.

So over 3, 000 reported abortions last year in Iowa. Those are just the ones reported. The actual number is far, far worse than that, but 3, 000 official, government sanctioned. Dallas and Madison County sanctioned. Earl of Iowa sanctioned murders.

Think about that. Sanctioning murder. In America, millions every year. So since 1973, over 60 million children sacrificed to Molek. And again, it's sanctioned murder, murder in which there was no justice, murder in which there was no prosecution, fathers and mothers who murdered their children in the womb, not prosecuted but protected.

Murderers not chastised but cheered. Yikes! That must stop. That must stop. God says it must stop or his wrath will burn and he's gonna make it stop with the annihilation of our land He will not be mocked he will not be he will not stand by idly and Continue to let child sacrifice go on So we must stop as a people, as a state, as a nation.

We must stop insisting that the baby in the womb doesn't have the same legal protection as the baby outside the womb. I know you know this, but we need to hear it. We need to teach our children. We need to teach our neighbor. We need to hold our civil magicians to the fire.

We need to say things. No, the baby in there, in the womb, is an image bearer of God from conception, the same as the image bearer out here. And we just read that in Psalm 139. So anyone, anywhere who murders anyone anywhere is to be prosecuted everywhere because God's law demands it. I just said a lot of words there.

Anyone, anywhere who murders anyone anywhere is to be prosecuted everywhere because God's law demands it. I just said a lot of words there. Anyone anywhere who murders anyone anywhere is to be prosecuted everywhere because God's law demands it. That includes mothers who murder their baby. This is a very difficult thing for people and I get it.

Mothers who murder their babies should be prosecuted for murder. Equal protection under the law. Equal weights and measures. For those in the womb, same as those outside the womb. So all babies are image bearers, yes?

Yes. And if it is murder for a mother to murder her baby after the baby's born, God tells you, then it's murder all the same to go and do that before they're born. It's murder all the same. They're image bearers from the moment of conception. Now we're not being mean here.

Of course we want to care for mothers. Of course we want to help meet needs. Of course we understand the horrible situations that mothers might find themselves in. Of course we do. But regardless of the circumstance that a mother finds herself in, It is not confusing what God thinks about a mother murdering her child.

He hates her. So when someone murders a child, they're not a victim. They're not the victim when they murder their kid. They're the murderer. And that is not all at then, it's not at all saying that we don't think people are real and true victims.

We don't think people are real and true victims of horrible and evil things. You know, it happens all the time. There are Clear biblical categories for the guilty, for the perpetrators, and for the victims of the evil deeds that the perpetrators have done. There are clear biblical categories. But when it comes to abortion, the victim in abortion is not the mother.

No, the victim is the murdered baby. So I just need to be able to say because we have such confusion in our land and it starts with confusion in the church we must have equal protection under the law according to God's law. God's law demands that we as a nation, if we're gonna continue to exist, we must protect life. And therefore, we must abolish abortion. Starting right here in Ireland.

And We can talk through all the different strategies about it, but let's all have the same goal in mind. We must abolish abortion. And so men, you have to lead in this. Men, your glory is your strength, so use your glory beginning on your knees in prayer, that God would rid us of this scourge. Plead with God that he would grant repentance and faith, and that in the power of his gospel, through the death and resurrection of his son, that he would bring Iowa, that he would bring America to its knees, and that we would covenant once more before Almighty God as a land to worship Jesus Christ and to love him by keeping his commandments.

And instead of loving death, begin to love life again. And the people who love life because they love the author of life, you know what they get? They get life. So instead of offering our children to Moloch through the temple of Planned Parenthood and mail in child sacrifice pills, instead of a child sacrifice to Molech, pray men, and lead your wives in this, and lead your children in praying for this. Pray that we would offer our bodies as living sacrifices in faith through the resurrected temple named Jesus the Christ.

Lead men, your families, get on your knees in prayer. And then men, have that prayer, listen to this men, men have that prayer come out your fingertips. In the way that you vote, and in the way that you speak, and in the way that you speak, and in the way that you exhort your civil magistrates, our civil magistrates, you and I men, we must exhort our civil magistrates to fear God. Fear God, civil magistrate. We must pray for them.

Do you pray for them? You must. It's the only way God's going to move. The prayers of His people, it's the way God moves. We must pray for our civil magistrates, trusting that God will do a miracle in them, a miracle in our land.

And we must tell our civil magistrates, we must warn them, do you not know that God sees? He sees everything. That's what Psalm 139 is all about. When David is talking about a child in the womb, the whole Psalm is about the omniscience, the all-seeingness of God, the all-knowingness of God. And David can't conceive in his mind a place that is more dark and more mysterious than the womb of a mother.

He says, God even knows what's going on inside there. Do you not know, civil magistrates, that there is nothing hidden from the all-seeing, the all-knowing God, we must tell them that. Do you not know, magistrates, that God hates sinful partiality, and that by protecting murderers of babies, you're guilty of the shedding of innocent blood? We must proclaim to them that by insisting that mothers who willfully, with malice and forethought willfully, are murdering their unborn children, that they're guilty of bloodshed before Almighty God, we must proclaim to our magistrates the law of God that that's murder, and that by providing immunity for those who murder, they're transgressing the law of God, and by the way, they're taking the gospel away from murderers. Think about that.

They're robbing. When you say murder is okay, when you applaud women and men murdering their babies, you are robbing mothers and fathers of the only thing that can save and forgive them of the murder that they're guilty of. You're saying you're not guilty. You're not guilty. So you rob them of the gospel by which guilty sinners may fly and be freed.

Stop it. We must tell our magistrates, stop robbing murderers of the gospel of Jesus Christ by saying that they don't need forgiveness for murder. We must tell our legislators of Iowa, stop it. Stop it, legislators of America. Stop it, Mr.

President of the United States. Stop robbing doctors and men and women of the gospel. When you label them a victim, and not what God declares them to be. Murderers in need of forgiveness. So we must exhort our civil magistrates to protect life.

Men, you must teach your children to value life, to defend life, and we must proclaim to our neighbors and to our household the truth of Isaiah chapter 1 verses 16 and 17. And I quote, wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, remove your evil deeds from my sight, stop doing evil, learn to do what is good, pursue justice, Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. We must tell them, our children, our neighbors, our magistrates, We must tell them that in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone, there is assurance of pardon.

We must tell those who are guilty of murder that there is an empty tomb, that There is a rightness with God through Jesus Christ his son. You and I, we must preach repentance and faith and atonement in Jesus' name for abortionists, for fathers who have failed, for mothers who have killed their children. We must proclaim to them the truth that there is more righteousness in the gospel of Jesus Christ than there is sin in the worst of sinners. We must exhort them. We must exhort them, come.

Come. And be welcome to Jesus Christ. Come and be made new. Come and be raised from death to life. No longer a child murderer, right?

You come to Jesus no longer as a child murderer, but a blood-bought child of God. And in the power of the gospel, you will then learn to do what is good. In the power of the gospel, you will put away this sin of murder in your heart. And we will put this sin of murder away in our land. We must do this, men, we must lead here.

It begins with you. In large part we have what we have because we've been effeminate. We have what we have in our land because we've been very effeminate men. We can't be that anymore men. Starts right here, I know.

Can't be effeminate anymore. Remember Proverbs 24, brothers. Deliver those who are being taken away to death. Remember those who are staggering to slaughter and hold them back. If you say, see we did not know this.

Does he God not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does he not know it who keeps your soul? And will he not render to man according to his work? Brothers and sisters, seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Thou shalt not murder.

So, have you murdered Anyone? Maybe you have. Have you broken the sixth commandment? Perhaps most of you in this room have felt pretty good about yourself as you hear me preach. Well, the Lord Jesus would have you feel otherwise.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five. Beginning in verse 21, Matthew 5, beginning in verse 21, Jesus is giving the sermon on the mount. And in verse 21, the Lord Jesus says this.

You have heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court and whoever says to his brother you good for nothing shall be guilty before the Supreme Court. And whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." There's more there you can read. But Jesus quotes the sixth commandment, then explains that the sixth commandment does not merely apply to your hands, but it also applies very much to your heart. All the law of God applies to your heart.

So to paraphrase Martin Luther, The sixth commandment doesn't merely require clean hands, but also a clean heart. And this is what is also prohibited in the sixth commandment, hateful anger. Do you, brothers and sisters, do you children have murder in your heart? That is a violation of the law of God. Look again at verse 22.

But I say to you, Jesus says, that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty. Guilty of what? Murder in his heart. Now murder in the heart is not a crime. There are no thought police to bring you into custody and bring you before an earthly court for being unrighteously angry.

There is a big difference biblically. We must make this distinction between a crime and a sin. Oftentimes they're the same thing. They're not always the same thing. They're not always the same thing.

They're not always in the same category. There's a crime and sins. So anger is not a crime, but according to Jesus, murder in your heart is very much a sin. It's very much something that God hates. And so as Alistair Begg puts it, I'm gonna read a lengthy quote, and just imagine as I'm reading this quote, me speaking in a wonderful Scottish accent.

Okay. I was hoping that the word wrath would be in here because I can say it like it, ruff, but I can't, it's not in here. So I can't roll any r's, okay. Quote, so this is what Alistair Begg says, Just because we may not have committed a violent act against anyone, just because we've not physically murdered someone, are we to imagine ourselves to be in the clear? Ah, but have I hated someone?

Have I wished someone harm or evil or misfortune? Did you ever drive away from a business meeting thinking, I'd like to kill that guy? Ever get so frustrated or angry with someone that you called them a total idiot to their face? To others? Or maybe just to yourself?

Jesus said that anyone who calls or thinks of his brother or sister as an idiot or fool is subject to the same judgment as those who commit murder. Just because I haven't shed someone's blood doesn't mean I'm innocent. My heart and mind have harbored thoughts and feelings that are as foul as murder. We kill people all this time with our contemptuous anger, our animosity and malice, our hostility and gossip, little hidden murders. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing, my brothers this should not be." James chapter 3. Sin is sin. Abortion kills, so does gossip. Murder is lethal, so is hatred. The law says no murder.

The spirit of the law says you shall not cut down one another in any way. Gossip that disfigures and destroy. Malice that desecrates and diminishes. Anger that criticizes. Hatred that destroys.

Little hidden murders. Sin is sin. So when you think about murder, remember what Jesus taught in Matthew chapter five. End quote. So children, I want to speak to you this morning.

Children, can you please listen to me? Children, do you get upset with your brothers and your sisters? Do you get upset with your mommy and your daddy? Do you know What's in your heart when that happens? When you want to hit your brothers and sisters?

When you want to yell and scream at your mother and your father? Do you know what's in your heart when you want to hurt people? That's murder in there. It's murder in there. That's the same thing children that was in Cain's heart all the way back in Genesis chapter 4.

You remember that? Cain angry with his brother. Children, listen to me. Angry with his brother. He had murder in his heart and that murder finally moved out from his heart to his fingers and he killed his own brother.

First murder recorded in the scriptures. And children, that kind of murder was in my heart. That kind of murder was in my heart. That kind of murder was in my heart, your pastor's heart. And it came out through my fingertips in the way that I fought with my little brother named Gregory and Carson.

And I'd be so angry, children, day after day after day, I'd be so angry. We'd fight and we'd fight and we'd fight. And he was always bigger than me, but man, I put out a fight. I put it up. And one day, after a particularly nasty fight, children, God, let me see the evil that was in there.

He made me see that I was a murderer inside, that I had broken God's law, that I was a sinner and that I knew it. I knew that I needed forgiveness. I knew that I needed a Savior. I knew that I needed a new heart. I knew I needed cleansing.

And there was only one Savior I knew that could possibly do it. And so I ran to the Savior that I had been taught year after year after year, the one that could make sinners new. And children, Jesus Christ did it. I was guilty of murder in my heart, and God used the murder in my heart to bring me to his son so that I could trust him. So children this day you may cry out to the Lord Jesus for mercy.

Children this day you may believe upon His name and He promises that He will take the punishment for your murderous anger upon Himself. He will take the penalty for all of your sin. He dealt with it 2, 000 years ago at His cross. And He will break the power of your sin children. He will set you the prisoner free because you rose up from the grave.

And He will give you His Spirit. He will make you new. And He will make you more and more into a young man and a young woman Who gets to be angry at the right things? I'm really tired, I get emotional when I get tired. I've been mad.

You'll be angry at the right things. Angry at sin. So children, hear me, come to Jesus Christ. Come and be welcome to the one who died in the place of murderers, if you just repent and believe. I want that so much for every single child in this room.

I want it for these five girls. I want it for all these dozens and dozens of little babies and little kids that are growing up in the Lord. May God grant you repentance. So hateful anger is prohibited by the six commandments. Jesus says so.

Now I don't want you to be confused, children I don't want you to be confused either, adults I don't want you to be confused, but there is an anger you know that is not sinful. There is an anger that's righteous. Not all anger is unrighteous anger. That's why I put the modifier hateful anger there. Not all anger is murder.

Ephesians 4, 6 says, be angry and do not sin. And think about Jesus. Jesus was righteously angry at the money collectors in the temple. As what did He do? He fashioned a whip and He drove them out.

And He was righteously angry and yet there was no murder in his heart because Jesus kept the law and he kept it perfectly. Think about this, the thrice holy God who cannot break his own law, he is very angry at sin, he's very angry at sinners. And he poured out his righteous anger upon his son Jesus in the place of those whom Christ Jesus died for And so for all who repented and believed upon the name of his son He has poured out his righteous wrath his righteous anger upon His son in their place and for those who haven't repented he will pour out his righteous anger and righteous wrath on you for eternity. That's righteous anger. So not all anger is murder, but brothers and sisters, please remember James chapter 1.

This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all the remains of wickedness in humility receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls." Augustine said it well, anger is a weed, hate is the tree. Anger is a weed, hate is the tree. So forsake hateful anger. So we've answered the question what is murder, homicide, suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and hateful anger.

That's all sin. But As I promised you last time, I don't want to end without answering the next question which is what is not murder? When is taking another image bearer's life lawful and not a violation of the Sixth Commandment? What is not murder? I'll give you four categories.

We'll go through these rather quickly. Number one, accidents. Number two, capital punishment, the death penalty. Number three, self-defense. And number four, war.

A just and lawful war. And depending on the way you think about these, you might be able to put certain categories together. So other people might not have the same list, but they all go together. Number one, accidents. Accidents.

Exodus chapter 21, Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 4, Joshua chapter 20. God's law dictated that there would be a place that a person could go if they committed accidental manslaughter, accidental homicide. So in God's law, it required a trial, and if after the trial, so someone was killed, a trial happens, and if during the trial the matter was confirmed that the killing was an accident, that it was not a violation of the Sixth Commandment, then that person who committed the killing was permitted to go to a place called the City of Refuge. The City of Refuge. And they would not face the death penalty.

An example of this is given in Deuteronomy 19 verse 5. Deuteronomy 19, five, quote, when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut some wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle and strikes his friend so that his friend dies, that man may flee to one of these cities and live." He didn't receive the death penalty. Another example could be a little bit more modern. Driving down the road, of course, and a child on a bicycle crosses the street in front of you, and you strike him or her with your car. Now that act, as horrendous as it is, that is an accidental death, and it does not merit the death penalty according to God's law.

But intentional death by murder, intentional death by murder, that does merit the death penalty. That does merit capital punishment. And that brings us to the second category, Capital punishment. So number one was accidental death, but the first God-ordained reason given in the Bible for why you might intentionally take the life of a human being and for it to be lawful is capital punishment. So throughout the Old Testament beginning in the time of Noah God made it very clear that the penalty for murder was death.

Genesis 9 verse 6, 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 in the murderous sense 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.

There's lots more. He shall surely be put to death. Why? Because murder is an assault on God's own likeness and God's own world by the creatures that he put on his world to preserve the sanctity of life and not destroy it. You were made to multiply the image of God.

And when you murder, you destroy it. And so it is lawful to put to death a murderer. That's what God says. But in our day, including brothers and sisters in the church, in our day we get wonky on this, and we have redefined what we think is just. We think we know better than God.

And so, I got another quote, again it's lengthening, it's really good, R.C. Sproul. He doesn't have an accent. His little booklet on the law of God, he gives an example of how we seem to know better than God, and I quote, I remember when the Supreme Court lifted the ban on capital punishment in American society, leaving the states with the authority to legislate in this area. Pennsylvania, for example, reinstituted capital punishment for first degree murder.

When the legislature did this, the bill was vetoed by the governor of Pennsylvania, a professing Jew. He vetoed capital punishment on the basis that it violates the Sixth Commandment, claiming that the law of God is higher than the law of the state. No, no, that is true. He argued that if God says you shall not murder, then we must not kill by executing murderers. But the irony of this was that The penalty in the Old Testament for violating the Sixth Commandment was execution.

Also, this principle of capital punishment for murder was not introduced at Sinai with the Ten Commandments, but was established much earlier in biblical history with the creation covenant with Noah after the flood. God instructed Noah, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed, for God made man in his own image, Genesis 9-6. This is not a descriptive statement, This is not a descriptive statement, but rather a command from God. Capital punishment is required because man is created in the image of God, and God regards a malicious assault upon any human being as an assault upon the life of God himself. So if anyone dares to go with malice and forethought to slay another human being, then that person's life is forfeited.

And the reason for that, biblically, is the sanctity of life. Human life is to be treated as so sacred that if anyone willfully and maliciously slaughters another human being, then that person is to be executed. Yet ironically in our own culture, opposition to capital punishment is invariably rests on the argument of the sanctity of life. Ironically, in our own culture, opposition to capital punishment rests on the argument of the sanctity of human life, " end quote. So we believe in the sanctity of human life, so we're not going to execute murderers.

It might sound kind of, oh yeah, it kind of sounds good. Brothers and sisters, we need to learn something right now. You cannot be more pure than God. I'm amazed, as a pastor, I didn't think I'd come up against this, but I come up against it a lot more than I thought. I'm amazed at how often I talk to brothers and sisters who find themselves in positions that are more pure in their minds and more holy than God's position.

Are you kidding me? The thrice holy God cannot be outdone in holiness. You cannot be more clean, you cannot be more pure than him who is thrice holy. And the thrice holy one says that the shedding of an innocent blood ought to be dealt with by the civil magistrate who bears the sword by punishing the evildoer often through capital punishment. God says that the state, your civil leaders, when they put murderers to death, That's very much lawful.

It's very much his idea. So far from devaluing life, the death penalty does not devalue life, the death penalty upholds the sanctity of life. That's what God says. So we should say it too. Right?

Category number three. Category number three. Self defense. It is lawful to kill in self defense. Exodus 22, verses two and three.

Now listen to this passage carefully. This will be really helpful for some of you. Exodus 22 verses 2 and 3. If a thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guiltiness on his account. But if the Son has risen upon him, there will be blood guiltiness on his account.

That's Exodus chapter 22 and that makes a very big distinction. Did you catch it? A burglar, a burglarer, that's the word. A blur, a thief, I can't say that word. That is funny.

I'm not even gonna try it again. A thief comes at night and he comes into your house and you don't know why he's there. It's dark. But you know he's not supposed to be there. Taking him out, shooting him, is it murder?

Self-defense. But if the sun comes up, Exodus 22 says, and you can see that he's not there to take your life, he's just there to steal your silverware, now shooting him is not lawful. Taking his life is not lawful. Things are more clear. That changes what you can do lawfully according to God.

So, as Matthew Henry says, a man's house is his castle, and God's law, as well as man's law, I'm sorry, And God's law, as well as man's law, I'm sorry, and God's law, as well as man's, sets a guard upon his castle. And he that assaults the castle does so at his peril. And we might add, particularly at night. So I remember talking to Isaac a while back. This is probably, this was months and months ago.

The Johnstons. They had come over for dinner and Esther, Isaac's wife, had left her phone at her house. I think that's what she left. I could be getting stories mixed up, but anyway, we'll go with it. So they left something, and I went back to his home that night after I got the girls down to give the phone back.

And I knocked on the front door, And as I knocked on the front door, the door just opened, just swung open right up with my knock. Then you had to turn the door knob. And so there's a door open and I'm standing there and I am thinking about Exodus chapter 22. And I'm thinking in my mind, it's getting dark, it's not quite pitch black out, and I know that I'm not a thief, but Isaac doesn't, and so maybe I should just wait until the sun comes up, And nothing happened, I'm still in one piece. And Esther did get her phone back.

But self-defense is a lawful reason to kill, which is why we have a security team willing to do just that. Should the need arise, because far from God being okay with the taking of human life for self-defense, no, actually God requires it. God requires the defense of your family and the defense of your people. Nehemiah 4.14, remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers, fight for your sons, fight for your daughters, your wives, and your houses. 1st Timothy 5 8, if anyone does not provide for his own home, sorry, if anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Whoa! And that word provide there is more than just food and clothing. That word provide there is also shelter and protection. If anyone does not provide for his own, he's worse than an unbeliever. So self-defense and the defense of your people is lawful and required.

And that brings us to the final category of lawful killing which really could be described as the practical outworking of the previous two, capital punishment and self-defense. But this is war. Just war. A war that is just, a war that is righteous. Romans chapter 13 verse four, God appoints civil rulers for the promotion of public good.

That's what Romans 13 says, right? God appoints civil rulers to encourage good in the public, in the nation. And one of the ways that civil rulers promote good in the land is 1st Peter 2 14 by punishing the evildoer with the sword. Capital punishment. And so as Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 teach us, there are times when the defense of a people requires war.

Requires war. There comes a time when civil magistrates have to pull out the sword, particularly for the defense of their people and the cessation of evil against their people. That's just war and killing in a just war is lawful according to God. Both the Westminster and the Second London Baptist Confessions declare this, quote, the magistrate ought especially to maintain justice and peace according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth. So for that end, they may lawfully now, under the New Testament, wage war upon just and necessary occasions.

They may lawfully wage war upon just and necessary occasions. They may lawfully wage war upon just and necessary occasions. That's the Westminster and the Second London Baptist Confession. So we see this throughout the Old Testament of God making killing lawful when his people went up against their enemies. They put them to the sword the text says.

It was lawful. God didn't break his own law. It was not a violation of the sixth commandment. When David kills Goliath, nobody in this room, I don't think, thinks that's murder, not murder. It was righteous.

When Phineas in Numbers 25 plunged his spear through a man and a woman sinning in the camp, bringing an end to this plague that was ravaging the people. When Phineas did that, the Lord called that killing a just killing, a just form of war. And so under these categories, we find the lawful use of force by police officers and soldiers and fathers in the home, mothers too when necessary. When a Life is taken in the instance of self-defense, or the protection of the weak and the vulnerable, that's lawful. God ordains it to be lawful to take a life when it prevents greater sin and bloodshed in the defense of your people.

So, think about the crusades. You had at one point during the crusades, like before the crusades were going, Muslims were capturing Christian women and there were so many sex slaves of young European Christian women that they were going for the price of one onion. And Christians who had not yet been subjugated to Islam, Christians got together and they said that is enough. They are killing our people. This is a just war that we will wage against the Mohammedans.

And they drove them away with some success and some not. That was a just war. There were some things that happened during those times that were not just. We can talk about that. But war, when it is for a just cause, is lawful.

Think about this. In the defense of the helpless, and in the defense of the weak, and in the fight against evil, sacrifice is going to happen. And I can hear some people say, oh well isn't that suicide? Throwing yourself into a war, throwing yourself in self-defense, you're killing yourself. That's suicide, it's not suicide, it's sacrifice.

Major distinction there. Men and women are gonna lay down their lives, that's not suicide, that's sacrifice, that's not sin, that's glorious. Sacrifice is glorious, Why? Because ultimately that's how Jesus, your Savior, saved you. Ultimately this is how, through sacrifice, Jesus rescued you and bought you and won you.

Jesus went to war for you. Climaxing in his death and resurrection, he loved you and gave himself for you as a sacrifice. When you were dead in your sin, when you were guilty of murder, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came in the wisdom and mercy of God in the place of sinners. He was brought before Pilate as a law breaker, though he was blameless. And also before Pilate was brought a murderer.

And that murderer's name was Barabbas. A murderer Barabbas was also brought before Pilate. And you had the blameless one and you had the murderer. And the murderer was released. The murderer was set free in the place of the blameless one.

Jesus took the place of the murderer and the crowd upon receiving the murderer and Jesus now standing before Pilate the crowd demands death crucifixion crucify him The crowd demanded unlawful capital punishment murder was in their hearts Brothers and sisters same murder in your hearts Children the same murder in yours The same murder that was in that crowd's heart was in the heart of Cain when he shed the innocent blood of Abel, his brother. And what happened in Genesis chapter 4 when Cain shed the innocent blood of his brother? The blood of Abel, do you remember this? Genesis chapter 4, the blood of Abel cried out from the ground to God for justice. It's what the blood, the blood of Abel cried out from the ground, give me justice.

But the blood of the better Abel, Jesus, that blood shouts something different. That blood from the ground shouts finished. Finished. His blood shouted finished. Hebrews 12 24, the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Abel.

It shouts salvation accomplished. Propitiation won. Eternal redemption secured for the worst of sinners. This is my blood of the covenant, Jesus says, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. And may God give us the grace to believe and to trust and to be washed in that blood.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and your wonderful grace. We thank you that you forgive sinners, that you take the place of murderers, and that Father, far from just forgiveness, you then take your name and you place it upon the pardoned sinner and you make them your own child and then you invite your children pardoned murderers to your table. Oh Lord make us into a thankful people. Make us into a people that just can't get over your amazing grace.

Thank you for being the rock of ages cleft for us. And we thank you in the name of your son. Amen.