\n <\/p>\n
\n \n Introduction:<\/span>\n <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n A new\nmissionary recruit went to Venezuela for the first time. He was struggling with\nlanguage and didn’t understand a whole lot of what was going on around him. His\nfirst Sunday there, he intending to visit a local church, but he got lost on\nhis way there. Eventually he found the place, but arrived late, the church\nalready packed. As usually happens, the only pew left was in the front row.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n He sat\ndown there, but didn’t want make a fool of himself, so he decided it would be\nbest to pick someone to imitate. He chose to follow the man sitting next to\nhim. As they sang, the man clapped his hands, so the missionary recruit\nclapped, too. When the man stood up to pray, the missionary recruit stood up, too.\nWhen man held the cup and bread for Lord’s Supper, he too held the cup and\nbread. During the preaching, the recruit didn’t understand a thing. He just sat\nthere and tried to look exactly like the man sitting next to him in the front\npew.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Later, he\nrealized the preacher was giving announcements. People clapped, and he looked\nto see if the man was clapping.<\/span>He was,\nso the recruit clapped, too. Then the preacher said some words he didn’t\nunderstand at all, and he saw the man next to him stand up. So, of course, he\nstood up too.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Suddenly a\nhush fell over the entire congregation. A few people even gasped. The\nmissionary recruit looked around and saw that nobody else was standing, so, he\nsat down. After the service ended, the preacher stood at the door shaking hands\nwith the people as they left. When the missionary recruit stretched out his\nhand to the preacher, the preacher said, in English, “I take it you don’t speak\nSpanish.”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n The\nrecruit answered, “No, I don’t. Is it that obvious?”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n “Well,\nyes,” said the preacher. “Especially when I announced that the Acosta family\nhad a newborn baby boy and asked if the proud father would please stand up.”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n This is a\nvivid example of why we need to be careful who we follow in life. People will\nmislead us (either intentionally or unintentionally), so we need to be careful\nwho we look to as our example, whose rules we live our lives by, who we\nbelieve, who we look to as the source of real and ultimate truth.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n That’s the\nreason we’ve been looking at the Ten Commandments the last several weeks. As\nChristians, we know we’re not saved by keeping the commandments and law that we\nfind in Old Testament. Those are a part of the Old Covenant people had with\nGod. We’re saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed to cancel out our\nsins. However, we also realize the value of God’s commandments originally given\nto the Israelites.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Proverbs\n27:12 reads: “A sensible man watches for problems ahead and prepares to meet\nthem. The simpleton never looks, and suffers the consequences.” God’s\ncommandments are wisdom for us; they lead us in living worthwhile lives that\nglorify God. By following them, we’re looking ahead. We’re being sensible.\nThat’s why we study them and follow them.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n A\nthird-grade teacher was once teaching the Ten Commandments to her class in\nschool. This was back when they could still teach them in school. She was\ndiscussing the commandment regarding honoring one’s father and mother. Then she\nasked, “Is there any command regarding brothers and sisters?”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n One young\ngirl raised her hand and said, “Thou shalt not kill.”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Today,\nwe’re looking at the Sixth Commandment: “You shall not murder.” Now, you might\nbe saying to yourself, No problem, I’ve\nnever murdered anyone and cannot imagine a situation arising when I would. I’ve\ngot this commandment licked.<\/em> However, as you might have guessed, it’s not\nreally all that simple—there’s a whole lot more to it than that.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n \n Human life has value.<\/span>\n <\/strong>\n \n \nIn a day and age when one can hardly watch TV for a half-hour without hearing\nsome politician spout on about how much he allegedly cares for the children of\nAmerica, it is difficult to grasp just how cheap and little-appreciated human\nlife has been at times in history. We have to remember that when this\ncommandment was given, people of that day and age regularly sacrificed other\npeople—sometimes even their own children—to their idols, their false gods. That\nis something that is unthinkable for us today. We cannot comprehend such a\nthing happening.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Also, the\nIsraelites had recently been released from slavery in Egypt. Think about it for\na bit: a culture that can justify to itself enslaving millions of people\nobviously doesn’t value human life very highly at all. The infant-mortality\nrate had to have been incredibly high. Medical practices were very primitive,\nor maybe even nonexistent. Nowadays, people have relatively few children; but\nback then they had as many as they were able to have. They didn’t know how many\nwould survive past infancy.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Food was\nmuch harder to come by than it is for us. Cities had walls around them to\nprotect the people from raiders and invaders. Warfare was common. Certainly it\ndid not happen on the scale we see it today—not as many were killed—but it must\nhave much more widespread than it is now. Likely it touched nearly everyone at some\npoint in their lives. There were very few centralized governments that were\npowerful enough to provide the security and infrastructure that are necessary\nfor general prosperity. Simply put, life was cheap. Human beings were usually\nviewed by the powerful as a renewable resource, like wood, coal, or other\nvaluables. That’s a picture of the world back then—as well as in many places\nand in many times since then.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Into this\nworld God introduces the idea that human life has a built-in value; that people\nare worth something other than what they produce, the work they do, or the\noffspring they bear’ indeed, that people have value even if they do none of\nthese things. God commands his people: “Do not murder.” And murder<\/em> is really more accurate than the\nword kill<\/em> found in the King James\nVersion. The Hebrew verb here carries with it the ideas of premeditation and\nthe intention to end a life. So, despite what some say, this is not a blanket\nprohibition against all killing. It is a forceful ban on the unjust taking of\nhuman life.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n It is\ninteresting to note that in the text, God does not say why it is wrong, He just\nsays, “Don’t do it.” However, we can glean his reasoning for this from the rest\nof the Bible. It teaches us that human life is to be seen as a gift from God.\nWe are made in his image. It is like God has given a part of himself to each of\nus. Every person contains a “divine spark” at the core of his or her being that\nmakes us unique in our essence. We’re of a different category altogether than\nanimals.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n When we\nfirst told our oldest daughter that we might be moving to Oregon, she said,\n“Okay,” and immediately began to think about the implications. She hadn’t\nthought for very long when she asked us, “Are we taking Dinah?” Now, Dinah is\nour dog. She wanted to know for sure whether or not Dinah was making the move\nwith us. Notice she didn’t ask if we were taking her sister. She knew we\nwouldn’t leave a person behind, but she also realized that a dog, no matter how\nbeloved, is not on the same level as a person. I’m sorry if that offends you\ndog lovers, but Scripture teaches us that human beings are unique in all of\ncreation. God has given us life with a purpose. We are not accidents, but\nbeings, fashioned specially by our Creator.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n However,\nthat’s not a very popular idea in the world we live in. We live in an age of\nhyper-individualism, where what I<\/em>\nwant is the only thing that should matter. The widely held view is that “It’s\nmy life; I’ll do with it as I please. How dare someone—anyone—try to curtail my\nfreedom! I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it!”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n However,\nGod, in his Word, is telling us, “That’s wrong. You’re off-track in that\nthinking, and that attitude ultimately leads to a life full of more trouble\nthan you can imagine.” You see, our lives not our own, but are given to us by\nGod.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n \n Human life is literally being\ndevalued.<\/span>\n <\/strong>\n \n \nIt would be nice to think that the devaluing of human life is in our past, or\nfound only in the most primitive, backward parts of the world. However, that’s\njust not true, sadly. Just fifty-some years ago Nazi Germany put into practice\nthe belief that certain people—Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded,\nand so on—didn’t have this divine spark within them, and they sought to\neliminate them from the gene pool. Today, we have ethnic cleansing, tribal\nwarfare, people taking other’s lives because of their religions, and despotic\nregimes treating people worse than farm animals. We violate the spirit of this\ncommandment all the time. And it isn’t just the Red Chinese, the Skinheads, or\nthe Serbians who are guilty of this.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Let’s take\ntwo contemporary hot-button issues—abortion and capital punishment—for example.\nA friend once marveled to me that anyone could be “pro-life” as well as for the\ndeath penalty at the same time. They saw a big conflict there. “How can a\nperson be both?”<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n I said\nthere really was no conflict. When a fertilized egg begins to divide, God’s\ngift of life has been given. There is purpose behind it, a divine spark is\npresent in those cells. There is divinely placed potential that is meant to be\ngiven a chance to live and to glorify God. So, to arbitrarily cut that life\nshort is to rob God’s gift from that baby.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n On the\nother hand, when an adult in his right mind murders another person, he has done\nirreparable harm to that person. The murderer has robbed someone else of God’s\ngift of life. There is really no worse thing that can be done to a person by\nanother. So, when the government—not an individual seeking revenge, but a\nlegitimate government—determines that someone should be put to death for a\nmurder they committed, that government is really valuing life very highly. They\nare saying to the murderer, “What you’ve done is so heinous, so vile, that we\ncannot minimize it, whitewash it, nor sweep it under the rug. Murder demands\njustice.” To do any less is to cheapen the life of the murder victim. If\nsomeone’s child is murdered and the state refuses to punish that murderer in\nthis way, then they are saying that the murderer’s life is more valuable than\nthe life of the child he murdered.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Many\nplaces in the Old Testament, God explicitly states that certain crimes require\ncapital punishment. The Apostle Paul, in Romans 13, tells us that the\ngovernment is charged by God with the punishment of wrongdoers, and he includes\ncapital punishment in that mandate (“bearing the sword”). There is no conflict,\nat least in my mind and my understanding of Scripture, in being both pro-life\nand an advocate of the appropriate use of the death penalty.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n As long as\nwe’re in dangerous waters, we might as well get in deep, so what about suicide?\nIf we don’t buy the world’s lie that our lives are completely our own to do\nwith as we please, then where should we stand on this issue?<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Regarding\nsuicide, I believe it is fairly easy to discern the Bible’s teaching. Suicide\nis best described as “self-murder.” If we believe that life is a gift from God,\nthen we accept that certain strings are attached to that gift, namely that we\ncannot give it back to God before he is ready to take it. When it comes right\ndown to it, suicide is really a selfish attempt at taking an easy way out. I\nknew of a man who one Saturday went out and hung himself in his garage, leaving\nthree small children and his wife behind to deal with the aftermath. In\nreality, that is a gutless, thoughtless, and selfish choice. The whole idea of\nsuicide rails against the biblical notion of stewardship—that everything we\nhave is God’s and we’re merely entrusted with it for a time to use it for his\npurposes.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Traditionally,\nsuicide has been viewed as the one unforgivable sin. However, I don’t believe\nthat Scripture teaches this. First of all, those who commit suicide are not in\ntheir right mind at the time. They are, I firmly believe, mentally ill. They\nare in a dark hole that they cannot see a way out of. Therefore, since they are\nnot completely sane, they cannot be held eternally accountable for their\nactions.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Also, the\nfact is that we all rely on God’s grace to cover our sins, so why would one\nparticular sin, committed in a time of unspeakable despair and pain, nullify\nthat grace? It wouldn’t, and to suggest such a thing is to belittle Christ’s\nsacrifice for us. In one way, the only difference between suicide and any other\nsin is that with suicide, there is no chance to cool down to see where we went\nwrong, and to repent of that sin. It’s irreversible. However, as far as\ncondemnation goes, it’s no worse than any other sin, including those that you\nand I commit and repent of regularly.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n I realize\nthat each of these issues could be an entire message; but let’s talk bit about\neuthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, which is really just a variation on\nthe same theme.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n In any\nother state in the country, this wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue. I read in\nthe New York Times<\/em> just this past\nweek that in Oregon, about fifteen people have taken advantage of the\nphysician-assisted suicide law since it was passed the other year. This has\nbeen in the news lately because some in Congress are trying to circumvent that\nstate law. And while I believe there is a good point to be made regarding\nstates’ rights here, that doesn’t really figure into our discussion this\nmorning.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n The\nthinking behind physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia is that sometimes\npeople are suffering so much that it is better to end it than to let that\nhorrible suffering continue. After all, we put down horses when they are\nsuffering and we put dogs and cats to sleep when they are sick and hurting,\nbecause that’s the compassionate thing to do. So, why shouldn’t we do the same\nfor people when it’s necessary? I’ll tell you why? People are not on the same\nlevel as animals. Human life is special. Such a casual view of human life\ndenies the divine spark within and lowers people to the level of animals.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n The\nbiblical view of people is that we are not merely self-aware animals with\nopposable thumbs and complex forebrains, but that we are beings created by God\nin his image, for his purposes. Our lives have meaning just because we exist,\nand not because we fulfill some need on the food chain or serve our fellow\nhuman beings in some menial way. I realize that this runs completely contrary\nto the prevalent mood of our society these days; but, you know, that’s the\npoint of nearly everything in the Bible! Our society, our world, the culture\nwe’re a part of is corrupt, tainted, and sinful. We are not to be just like\neveryone else, but to look at things from God’s point of view. Our lives are\nnot our own. Ultimately they are God’s.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n \n Human life is being figuratively\ndevalued.<\/span>\n <\/strong>\n \n \nNow, suppose that none of the implications of this commandment that I’ve\nmentioned so far apply to you. You’ve never considered suicide, you don’t\nsupport abortion, and you’ll never murder your neighbor in a fit of rage, no\nmatter how much his dog barks. Does this mean that this commandment is\nirrelevant for you? We all might like to think so.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n However,\nJesus made it clear that we violate this commandment when we violate the spirit\nof it, and not just when we murder in a literal sense. “You have heard that it\nwas said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be\nsubject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother\nwill be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21–22a niv<\/span>).<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Do you\nrealize what this means? Taken at face value, it means that we violate the\nspirit of this commandment merely by having murderous thoughts of anger toward\npeople. However, I got to thinking about this and realized that sometimes anger\narises within me when I least expect it, almost with a life of its own. How\nmany of you have been angry at someone for just a second, and then, before you\nacted on the anger, you realized what you were doing and how it was an\noverreaction to something. Then you put that anger out of your mind? Everyone\nhere has done that many times, I’d bet.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n We all get\nmomentarily angry with our spouses, our children, co-workers, our best friends,\nyou name it. Does that mean we’re all essentially guilty of murdering them in\nGod’s eyes? I don’t think that’s exactly what Jesus had in mind here. Jesus,\nlike all good preachers and teachers, gave specific instances to clarify what\nhe meant, exactly. Here he gives two examples of what he was talking about, and\nguess what: Both have to do with someone saying something angry, hateful, or\nhurtful to another person.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n There’s an\nold story about a man who spread gossip, who bad-mouthed and told nasty lies\nabout an elder in the village where he lived. After a time he realizes how\nwrong it is to do this, so he goes to the village elder and repents, confessing\nhis wrongdoing and asking forgiveness.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n The\nvillage elder agrees to forgive him, but first assigns him the task of taking a\nfeather pillow to the top of a windy hill and releasing all feathers. The man\nis relieved that forgiveness can be obtained so easily. He goes out and\nfulfills the assignment.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n When he\ngets back, he goes to the elder to be forgiven. The village elder tells him\nthat he has just one more assignment for the offender. The man is somewhat\nannoyed at having another condition added to the forgiveness, but he is anxious\nfor absolution, being truly repentant, so he agrees. The village elder tells\nhim to go back up the hill and retrieve all feathers from the pillow. The man\nsays this would be impossible. The elder explains that each feather represents\na lie the man spread about him that has gone on to do damage to his reputation\nand to his very life.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n \n <\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n Then he\nasks, “How can that damage be repaired?” Just as it is irreversible when\nsomeone’s life is taken by another person, Jesus makes the point that the\nviolence done to a person when angry words are spoken is also irreversible, and\ntherefore akin to murder.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n This means\nthat when we gossip about someone, when we “blow off steam” at someone because\nwe’re angry and can get away with it, when we calculate our cutting words to\nhave the maximum effect on the temporary object of our wrath, when we run down\npeople who are unable speak up for themselves, when we holler at people who are\ndriving like idiots around us—when do all these things, we’re not merely being\nrude, unkind, or insensitive to them, but we’re actually devaluing their lives,\nlowering their worth in someone’s eyes. We’re forgetting that they, too, are a\nchild of God. We’re forgetting that they, too, are made in his image. You see,\nif we respect human life in general because God created us all, then we’ll also\nrespect their life in particular for the same reason.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n