The Sixth Commandment
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A lady once came to Billy Sunday and tried to rationalize her angry outbursts. "There's nothing wrong with losing my temper," she said. "I blow up, and then it's all over."
"So does a shotgun," Sunday replied.
And what we see in our culture today is that this kind of rationalization continues, but instead of honest replies like that of Reverend Sunday, we find agreement and aid given. The understanding that is destroying the church today is our propensity to excuse and or ignore sin in order to get them to come to church. But the real tragedy is when we start to lighten the requirements or even redefine the law so that we don’t think our behavior is a sin and we think we are meeting the righteous requirements of the law when we are far from doing that.
We cannot stop that drive in the inside of us to pursue the keeping of the law. From the very beginning, from the garden, we have been trying to do all that we can to gain a righteousness, but it is a righteousness that we must get on our own. I read a statement from an Atheist once where he said religion is not needed… I do identify my mistakes and I fix them… I don’t need religion to do that. This is the great deception and essentially the curse in the garden. We will get the knowledge of good and evil and decide what is right and wrong for ourselves. The problem is… we cannot identify mistakes on our own. Only God can tell us what is truly wrong. And we cannot fix them. We cannot without God fix and meet the requirements of the law. But we think we can under our own power, without religion, live right.
I remember some of the immature and erroneous thinking from this kind of teaching from when I was a teenager full of youthful lusts. I thought that I would spend time in my younger year to live and do what ever I want no matter how sinful. And when I get old, I’ll start living the way God wants me to, to make sure I go to heaven. No there is so much wrong with this, but for our purposes today… here is one. We think we can just do it. One day I’ll decide to truly obey God. But the time will come when we realize that we cannot truly obey God without God. We will come to realize that the purpose of the law was that we would not do them, but realize that we cannot do them.
For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.
This is why Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of God. And now He shows us why.
“You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.
The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.
Anger is Killing
More Serious than We Think
Paid In Full
The first thing we will look at today is how the law is demanding of the whole man, not just what is done with our hands, but what is in our hearts. Second, we will find that anger is way more serious and urgent of an issue than we think. Finally, we will see how it is through Christ that our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world causes us to redefine the law so that we believe that we are truly keeping it, it is the truth of the scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit that will show us that we are poor in spirit and though Christ and Christ alone we will enter the kingdom of heaven.
I. Anger is Killing
-Thou shalt not kill.
A. In essence… You have been taught by the many from before … Hey as long as you do not physically murder anybody you are good and fulfilling the sixth commandment. The scribes and pharisees clearly restricted the fullness of the 6th commandments to the physical act of spilling human blood in homicide. If you never did this, you can be sure you have truly kept the 6th commandment.
Dr. John Stott, “But Jesus disagreed with them. The true application of the prohibition was much wider, he maintained. It included thoughts and words as well as deeds, anger and insult as well as murder.”
B. You were taught by these teachers of the law that our ancestors were taught this. Those of old, were told that this is how we are supposed to understand this commandment. You have heard it said… Now I’m gonna tell you. If you are angry unrighteously angry with someone, if you use words of contempt like Rhaka and Moros you will also be liable to the same kind of judgement. In other words … if you are angry… you call someone an empty head or stupid or an idiot in a contemptuous of a mans head way and call someone a fool not in the sense of IQ but the sense of immorality in a contemptuous of a mans character way… you will also go to hell.
Dr. Kent Hugues, “Jesus here condemns angry contempt and all its cousins—animosity, malice, hostility, malevolence, wrath. He is not suggesting a ladder of offenses that result in progressively sterner judgments, as if “anger” gets a minor judgment, “raca” a stiffer penalty, and “fool” Hell. He is simply multiplying examples to make His point. And the point is, all such animosity can land one in Hell.”
C. The Heidelberg Catechism helps us with this…
105.Q. What does God require in the 6th commandment?
A. I am not to dishonour, hate, injure, or kill my neighbour by thoughts, words, or gestures, and much less by deeds, whether personally or through another; rather, I am to put away all desire of revenge. Moreover, I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself. Therefore, also, the government bears the sword to prevent murder.
106.Q. But does this commandment speak only of killing?
A. By forbidding murder God teaches us that he hates the root of murder, such as envy, hatred, anger, and desire of revenge, and that he regards all these as murder.
D. Jesus is saying that we must not even begin to ever think we are safe from judgement just because we have not shed blood in murderous homicide. We are guilty of murder enough to receive punishment if all we did was harbor anger, hatred and contempt.
Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
Have you ever wished someone were dead? Then your heart has known murder!” This is just one of the many way we do this family. In light of all of this, we cannot in any way deny the truth that we are all murderers. We are all murderers by nature. We have all murdered others in our very minds and our very hearts. And here Jesus is telling us that even in our thoughts we can indeed be condemned to hell just like literally shedding the blood of an image bearer of God.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.
E. Well maybe you might not think so… Jesus gives us two examples on how serious anger, hate, contempt for another can be.
II. More Serious Than We Think
-It is sending you to eternal torment serious.
A. It is more important than even Worship. Huh? Yes indeed.
Dr. Stott, “‘If you are in church, in the middle of a service of worship, and you suddenly remember that your brother has a grievance against you, leave church at once and put it right. Do not wait till the service has ended. Seek out your brother and ask his forgiveness. First go, then come. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your worship to God.’”
B. You have got to take care of your brother before you come to worship the Lord. The Lord wants us to make it right with our brother before we even come to Him in worship. Now this is not an excuse to not go to church. But making clear what it is to be before Christ. It is said, “Worship is merely a pretense if we have offended others in such a way that they are holding grudges against us.”
C. Make it right. It is very serious. To worship God with a guilty conscience of what we did when we can make it right, it just hypocritical futility. To think that it is not that important is a serious mistake.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
D. It is not just serious, but it is also seriously urgent. This is the point of the next illustration Christ gives.
E. Stott, “‘If you have an unpaid debt, and your creditor takes you to court to get his money back, come to terms with him quickly. Make a settlement out of court. Even while you are on your way to court, pay your debt. Otherwise, once you reach the court, it will be too late. Your accuser will sue you before the judge and the judge will hand you over to the police, and you will find yourself in gaol. You will never get out till you’ve paid the last penny. So payment before prison would be much more sensible.’”
E. If there is an offense. If you owe it. Do not delay… this is super serious. Do not allow it to fester. Do not wait untill it is too late.
And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,
F. Take care of it now. Do not wait until it is too late. There was a movie about a bully who bullied this person in high school. He was all grown up now and realized that he did this. He gave the guys he bullied a call and heart felt apologized for everything that he did to him in high school. After the bullied guy hung up the phone, the camera stayed with him as he leaned over to a paper on the wall that was a list called people that I need to kill. And he took out a marker and crossed his name off. Don’t wait until its too late.
G. The emphasis that Christ is giving is not getting killed by the person you offended, it is being judged in the fires of hell by the living God you have offended. Sure the world courts and authorities may not know what is going on in our hearts, but God surely does.
Then he said to them, “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God.
H. And remember it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
III. Paid In Full
-He paid the very last penny.
A. And the punishment for the transgression of murder, committed by all of us, is in effect. And we can take care of the debt right now. We do not have to delay. Our sin. Our transgression of the 6th commandment carries a clear punishment. Even if you who have broken even the smallest of commands are as guilty as one who has broken all of it. Sure you did not literally shed the blood of a image bearer of God in murder, if you are angry, contemptuous, hate, despise, insult another Jesus said we are in danger of the fires of hell.
B. Judgement is real for us who have broken any or all of the 10 commandments. And that includes all of us. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one is righteous no not one. There is no one one earth who always does good and never sins. We are all by nature children of wrath.
C. And the punishment is Hell. Jesus’ own words. Gehenna, the worst place ever. It is aweful. One social media preacher said last week… if Hell is not the worst place ever, then heaven is not the best place ever. Heaven is more than we could ever have imagined… then Hell is more than we can have imagined. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Eternal torment and fire. Eternal darkness. The place reserved for the devil and his angels. For eternity.
D. So don’t wait until its too late. No way we can do this on our own. No way we can love our enemies without Christ. No way our righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees. No way our anger, hate, contempt, malice, insulting, disappears without Christ. It is through Christ and Christ alone that we find hope. Hope even for murderers today.
E. We can be free from our prison and debt because the price was fully paid because Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
F. Paid in full family. Believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God and you will have life in His name. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There is salvation for us today. Do not let the sun go down on His anger with You. Go now and be reconciled. Do not wait till it is too late.
G. There is hope for us today… Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
