Death seems to be everywhere. We don't have to look very far. Death always leads the news. If someone has died or if there's been a serial killing or a mass killing of any kind, it's first on the news reports. All of us have lived through the pandemic, and at least at the beginning we were hearing constantly the drum beat of death and where it was, the worst, and how it wasn't getting any better, and what were we going to do about it. Now, Canada is often seen as a very peaceful nation, but sort of underneath the surface, coming up more and more to the surface, is evidence that we have a culture of death. Abortion on demand in Canada. I didn't realize this until fairly recently, that Canada and North Korea are the only two countries in the world where abortion is permitted at any time during gestation. That's from conception until live birth. A person is legally allowed to get an abortion. Now, that doesn't mean that they'll be able to find a doctor to do it, but it's legal. Thousands of babies are killed every year, and it goes virtually unnoticed. More recently, something called medical assistance in dying has come to the fore. The first year that statistics were available was 2017, and just over 2,800 people died through medical assistance in dying. And in 2021, just three years later, it was over 10,000 people. The provinces of Quebec and British Columbia, nearly 5% of all deaths were from medical assistance and suicide, or in dying. Now, as Canadians, we tend to be very proud of our health system, and sometimes with good reason. And a government-run health system has its advantages, but not if the government is atheistic. Because if the government is atheistic, then the advantage of keeping somebody alive, is otherwise a drain on the public resources, is limited. As a matter of fact, the Office of Parliamentary Budget, I think I said that right, estimated that medical assistance and suicide, I keep saying suicide because that's what it is, medical assistance and death could save Canadians $66 million a year, so they're already looking at it from the point of view of a budgetary thing. You can only do that if you're an atheist. You don't do that if you believe in God. You don't even have to be Christian to believe in God. Almost any religion in the world who believes in God also denigrates, is against suicide. It's not the only death that is on the forefront of our minds. We were all aghast when Ukraine was attacked by Russia, and that's ongoing. More recently Hamas attacked Israel, and now Israel is returning fire. It fits then that today we arrived at the sixth commandment, which simply says, do not murder. The word, the Hebrew word murder, can be used for something active, or it can also be used for something like negligence. So it would seem that the timing of all these events would lead us to a discussion of what constitutes murder and whether or not Christians can engage in warfare without breaking the sixth commandment, whether there's such a thing as a just war. We could look at the sixth commandment. We might also consider capital punishment, as we've talked about suicide and abortion and euthanasia, and how we should think about these things. And while all these things are worth discussing, it's fascinating that when Jesus takes the opportunity, as he does in the Sermon on the Mount, to interpret this commandment, he doesn't address any of these issues. Then you might say, well, Jesus didn't live in such perilous times. He didn't have to be concerned with politics or ruthless leaders or wars. Well, that's just simply not the case. You see, Roman leaders paid close attention to temple activity, and any threat to an overthrow of Roman power, even a symbolic threat, was dealt with harshly, as seen by the response to an incident around 5 B.C. when a group of about 40 young men climbed to the roof of the temple and began chopping down a golden eagle, as seen by them as a symbol of Roman control. The men were, according to historian Josephus, arrested with considerable force. Those observed on the temple roof were burned alive and others merely executed. When Jesus was younger, he witnessed hundreds of Rome's opponents crucified along the road, as if to serve as a warning to any who would dare oppose Roman rule. So Jesus was not unfamiliar with the wielding of state power or with the issues of justice and peace. So it's fascinating that when he interprets this commandment, he doesn't talk about any of those things. Instead, he addresses a different subject. Whether we would have thought of so or not, when Jesus comments on the sixth commandment, we can rightly assume that he's addressing the most important aspect of the commandment. So what does Jesus talk about? He talks about our hearts. My heart, your heart, our hearts. In the Sermon on the Mount, he does this by correcting the prevailing interpretation of several commandments. He does this first with the commandment, you shall not murder. So we'll look at the Pharisees interpretation, Jesus' correction, and our application. In verse 21, he states the prevailing interpretation. If you murder, you are subject. The ESV and the NIV says judgment. More literally, it would say you're subject to the court. What Jesus is addressing here is that the Pharisees have diminished the punishment related to the commandment. They're attempting to adhere to the letter of the law or at least wink at the letter of the law without violating, but while violating, when might I even say killing, the spirit of the law. The Pharisees had a tendency to look at the law of God as a contract, and they viewed themselves sort of as attorneys, and they were always looking for loopholes. Loopholes, or in some cases, as lawmakers, they would write additional laws. God's law clearly states that if someone murders, they shall be executed. This isn't uncommon even today. You know, people who constantly justify or law-breaking or covenant-breaking behavior. We justify all sorts of things. We justify gossip about somebody instead of going to talk to them because we'll say something like, well, they're not approachable. Well, they haven't been approached. But it's easier to gossip about them than to go talk to them. We justify our anger. Well, I'm hungry, or I don't feel well, or think of any other number of reasons that you give when you have an angry outburst. We justify holding grudges. We justify divorcing spouses without a biblical reason. It might surprise you, although I don't think it will because I've talked about it a few times, that this Phariseical, legalistic diminishing of God's divine sanctions started in the Garden of Eden. The Scripture says the Lord took the man and put him in the garden in chapter 2, verse 15 of Genesis, to work it and take care of it. He says, you're free to eat any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die. Now, the serpent's temptation and Eve's response, the serpent was more crafty. He said, did God really say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat from the tree that's in the middle of the garden. You must not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. God never said anything about touching it. You could have picked the fruit and played baseball with it. I think baseball was already started because it says, in the beginning, that's bad. Some people got that. Other people did and didn't think it was funny. He says, you will not surely die. For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. So you see, the Hebrew language, whenever something was emphasized, the word was repeated. So when God said, you will surely die, the Hebrew says, you will die die. And when Eve recalls the warning, she only says it once, you will die. So she diminishes God's sanction, which is exactly what the Pharisees are doing when they say you'll be subject to the court. Why do we do that? Because we want to believe that we're capable of keeping the law trusting in our own righteousness. If we look at the bar and we know that our lives depend on clearing it, we will try to lower the bar. See, in our pride, we want to diminish the command and the punishment so that we can meet it. Now, there are people who will say, well, listen, what about people that never heard God's word, they never read God's word, they don't know God's word? How can you still be responsible? Well, Romans chapter 1 tells us that the creation speaks to us about God and who He is and what He's done, and everyone has seen that so we're without excuse. And then Romans chapter 2 talks about how the only thing you have to go by is your conscience. If God judged you just according to your conscience, if you've ever violated it, you're guilty. So everyone, according to the Scripture, everyone according to God's word is guilty. So then the interpretation of the Pharisees is not right. And that's why Jesus is correcting it. So what is His correction? He starts by saying, you have heard it said, which we read, and then He says, but I say, in other words, let me tell you how it really is. If you're angry with your brother, you're subject to judgment. If you say, raka, you have to answer to the rulers of the church. If you say, you fool, you're subject to the fires of hell. Just anger is enough. Not hitting or killing. The word raka, a word indicating contempt, literally nothing as though they do not exist. Having contempt for others is a violation of the sixth commandment. And people do it all the time. People from different races, different educational backgrounds, different doctrinal views, different political views. In the second part of the Scripture that I read, Jesus delivers an insult to the Pharisees. He says, everyone who loves only those who love them, even the tax collectors do that. He's talking to the Pharisees. Nobody's more despised. Nobody's held in more contempt than the tax collectors by the Pharisees. And He's saying, even the tax collectors do what you do. Even the tax collectors love each other, despising another, in essence, wishing that someone was dead or did not exist, having a murderous heart toward another person is a violation of the sixth commandment. And Jesus says we're to love and pray for our enemies. So not loving and not praying for your enemies is a violation of the sixth commandment. Do not murder. Today we're talking mostly about what violates the sixth commandment. Next week we're going to talk about what we're supposed to do positively instead of the negatives. And Jesus says, if we do this, we'll be sons of our Father in heaven. But who can do this? How do we do this? Jesus says, oh, that's easy. Be perfect. So how do we apply this? First, we must understand and believe that we are morally more like our enemies than we are like God. This doesn't mean we can't make moral distinctions and judgments or statements. This doesn't mean that we can't say it's wrong for the Russians to attack Ukraine. It doesn't mean we can't say that Hamas should not have attacked Israel. It doesn't mean we can't say that medical assistance in dying is immoral or that abortion is immoral. It doesn't mean we can't say those things. What it does mean is that you have to recognize that I'm a sinful person. I'm closer morally to the most sinful person on earth than I am to a holy and perfect God. Chuck Colson was an advisor to the president, a very powerful man back in the 70s when the Watergate, most of you probably aren't old enough to remember Watergate, some of you are. Anyway, he ended up going to prison and he became a Christian. And then he would go around and speak and witness to people. And he remembers being in a boardroom one time and he was telling people that these were directors of companies and such. He was telling them that you have to recognize that you are closer to Adolf Hitler than you are to God. You are closer to the murderer of millions of people than you are to God. Illustration that I've used before is, let's say there's three people and they're all lined up on the coast of Nova Scotia. We'll give them Cape Breton, get them out far, as far east as we can. And they're going to swim to England. And we have three of us are going to go. I'm one, Tracy's one, and Dave Campbell's the other one. I do not know the swimming capabilities of Dave Campbell. I just know they're better than mine. But if we all started swimming, I would probably sink first. I don't know who would sink second, Dave or Tracy? Dave's pretty skinny so he probably would sink second. Tracy might be able to hold on for a little while. But if we looked at a map of the three, they would all be able to be covered by the same dot. In other words, even if Tracy swam three times farther than either of us, she would still be covered by the same dot. Because the distance between us and England is so great that we could never get there. That's just an impenitesimal object lesson of the distance between us and God morally. It's a distance we can't cover. In one of the trials after the Holocaust, Elie Wessel, who was a survivor of a concentration camp, was at the trial of Adolf Eichmann. And when he walked into the courtroom, he almost fainted, Elie Wessel did. Afterwards he was asked, was it just seeing this horrible, terrible person, this killer, this savage, this brutal person? He said no. He said had the killers been brutal savages or demented sadists, the shock would have been less. Adolf Eichmann was an ordinary man. He slept well, he ate well, he was an exemplary father, a considerate husband. During the trial in Jerusalem I could not turn my gaze away from him. Naively I was looking for the mark on his forehead, believing somehow that he who sows death must perforce dig a grave within himself. Yet he was a man like any other. Maybe Wessel didn't recognize it, but what I'm saying to you is that Wessel was closer to Eichmann than he is to God. And what his realization was that anyone, everyone, given the right circumstances, has a killing heart. And freedom from that killing heart is found in Christ. Listen to how Christ set us free. He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one who men hide their faces, he was despised. We esteemed him not. Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. The lawlessness has turned his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, and he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and a sheep before his shears is silent. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and who can speak of his descendants, for he was cut off from the land of living. For the transgression of my people he was stricken. Jesus is the one who corrects the interpretation of the commandment, and he has become for us the object of contempt. The one despised, the one murdered, the one judged for us. Freedom from your killing heart is only found in the person of Christ. Jesus, the object of anger, the one held in contempt, the one despised. How did he respond? With perfection on our behalf. In a minute we will celebrate the Lord's Supper, which is the sacrament that tells us that Jesus lived the life that we should have lived and died the death we deserve to die. Let's pray. Father, thank you as we come to the table. We pray. You would teach us again the Gospel. In Jesus' name, Amen.