The Hard Sayings:”You fool!” and it’s Straight to Hell

Text: Matthew 5:21-26

Theme: God is deeply concerned about the thoughts and attitudes of His people, not merely their behavior.

In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, penned by by George Orwell in 1949, the Thought Police (Thinkpol) are the secret police of the superstate of Oceania, who discover and punish thoughtcrime — personal and political thoughts unapproved by the nation’s political regime. The Thinkpol use criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones, to monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed thoughtcrime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother. We live in an era when policing what a person thinks or what a corporation thinks, or what an institution thinks is often more important than what it actually does.

Is God “big brother”? Does God police our thoughts and attitudes so that he might punish us according to what we think? This is the first of a series of statements in which Jesus makes the requirements of the Law more radical than the strict letter of the Law. The passage teaches that God, is indeed, concerned with our inward thoughts and attitudes, and not only our outward behavior.

It is possible to agree with everything Jesus taught in this sermon yet fail to live accordingly. Latter in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus would say of the Pharisees, “so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.” (Matthew 23:3, ESV). That is why Jesus indicates that the best of human piety in inadequate for salvation — whether it be Pharisaic or Christian. Nothing short of a radical transformation — what Jesus called the ‘new birth’ — can enable one to live as a disciple.

The reason this passage is a hard saying is because Jesus goes beyond the mere outward behavior and looks deep into the person’s character. God does indeed judge the thoughts of His creatures.

“O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:1–4, ESV)

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12, ESV)

Jesus says that hating someone is the same as murder. Our relationship with God is dependent on our relationship with others.

I. THE OBVIOUS — THOU WILL NOT MURDER

““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’” (Matthew 5:21, ESV)

1. for Jew, as well as for Christians, human life is sacred

a. it is a gift from God that is to be respected and protected

2. we believe this because the Bible teaches that human beings are created in the image of God — the Imago Dei

a. it means that the Creator of the universe has set us apart from all other forms of life

b. although that image has been marred by sin, His image is still present in humanity

c. the moment egg and seed come together in a woman’s womb the resulting zygote bears the imprint of God’s image and is worthy of protection

1) the only difference between that zygote and the baby human being it will become is a gestation of nine months

2) it you were to sample your DNA now and your DNA when you were merely a single cell implanted in the uterine wall that DNA would be exactly the same

A. YOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID ...

““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder ... “

1. virtually from the beginning of Hebrew society the Jews knew that murder was forbidden by God

a. we catch a glimpse of God’s respect for life very early in the history of man in the Covenant God made with Noah

“And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:5–6, ESV)

b. in God’s covenant with Moses God is crystal clear about the wanton taking of another’s life

““You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13, ESV)

2. murder was a capital offence under Israelite law

a. the death penalty could not be commuted to a fine or prison time

b. in the case of an accidental death — what we would call manslaughter — God had made provision for the culprit’s safety in one of the cities of refuge

ILLUS. Suppose your cutting wood with a friend and the axe-head of your axe flies off and hits your neighbor in the head and kills your friend. That was not considered murder, but even so, to escape the vengeance of the dead man’s next of kin you would have to flee to one of the six Cities of Refuge for safety until your case could be adjudicated.

c. if a man was found guilty of murder the death penalty was carried out by stoning with the witnesses throwing the first stones

d. this is the judgement Jesus speaks of in vs. 21

II. THE NOT SO OBVIOUS … DON’T EVEN THINK IT

“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:22, ESV)

A. BUT I SAY UNTO YOU

1. this is where the crowd begins to squirm

a. Jesus points out that the murderous act springs from the angry thought

1) it is in the mind that the crime is first committed and judgment is incurred

b. an earthly court cannot take action against the angry thought, but the heavenly court can, and does

1) this is why this is such a hard saying

2. we live in an era where hate speech and hate crime has become a part of our vocabulary

a. for the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity,” including skin color and national origin

1) a hate crime is more than just offensive speech or conduct; it is specific criminal behavior that ranges from property crimes like vandalism and arson to acts of intimidation, assault, and murder

2) I’ll be honest with you, I have philosophical objection to the very term hate crime

a) if I burn your house down should I receive another ten years in prison because I hated your nationality?

b) the fact that I chose to burn your house down ought to be a pretty good sign that I didn’t like you for some reason

c) what if I burned your house down merely because I didn’t like the color of your house rather then the color of your skin?

b. hate speech is a more nebulous thing — there is no legal definition of "hate speech" under U.S. law

1) but for the liberals in our nation, even though you can’t define hate speech, they all know it when they hear it

2) the problem is that one man’s hate speech is another man’s patriotic speech

3) there is, of course, social penalty for saying the wrong things about the wrong classes of people — it’s called “canceling”

4) it can be as simple as someone unfriending you on Facebook because you said something they didn’t like to governments going after people who said something that offended the “powers-that-be”

ILLUS. Back in May (2021) John Cena found himself apologizing profusely to China for the “sin” of calling Taiwan a country. Cena, a professional wrestler and a star of “F9,” the latest installment in the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise, apologized to fans in China after he referred to Taiwan as a country while giving a promotional interview. In the interview with a Taiwanese broadcaster he told the reporter in Mandarin, “Taiwan is the first country that can watch” the film. When they heard about it, the Chinese government threatened to cancel the film’s release in China unless Cena kowtowed to the Communist regime. Canceling the movie meant the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. Cena posted a video saying, “I’m very sorry for my mistakes. Sorry. Sorry. I’m really sorry. You have to understand that I love and respect China and Chinese people.”

3. but what about hate thought? are we coming to a time when what we think puts us at odds with the culture

a. I will tell you that, to some degree, we are already there

b. if you think biblically you may well find yourself on the someone’s watch list

ILLUS. We are living in an era where political administrations weaponize governmental agencies like the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service to investigate groups or organizations who oppose the political agendas of the controlling part. That’s dangerous.

c. if you’re a Christian who attempts to think biblically, who attempts to from your worldview based on historic Christian beliefs then you’re thoughts are unapproved by the nation's cultural elite

1) reveal those thoughts too openly, or to the wrong people and you, too, will be canceled

B. GOD IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN OBJECTIVELY JUDGE OUR THOUGHTS

1. and judge them He does — that’s the point of what Jesus is teaching

a. God is concerned with what we think, because of the actions that follow

2. in this verse Jesus gives examples of inappropriate attitudes toward those around us, but especially of a brother or sister in Christ

a. everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court

1) Jesus is referring to a selfish anger, anger against a brother, because he has done something against us, or simply irritates and displeases us

2) has to do with brooding, simmering anger that is nurtured and not allowed to die

3) it is seen in the holding of a grudge, in the smoldering bitterness that refuses to forgive

4) it is the anger that cherishes resentment and does not want reconciliation

b. and whoever shall say to his brother, “Raca,”shall be guilty before the supreme court

1) the translation of the word is literally worthless one

2) now, that might not seem such a big deal in our culture, but in Hebrew culture is was a scathing vilification of someone

3) to slander a creature made in God’s image is to slander God Himself

c. but even worse, Jesus said is to call someone a fool

1) it’s the Greek word moros, and is the word from which we get moron

2) the word can be translated as dull or stupid or brainless idiot

ILLUS. One commentator said the best interpretation of the word is the word Lucy van Pelt uses to describe Charlie Brown ... You blockhead!

3) again, in our culture, such an epitaph seems pretty unimpressive considering the vulgarity that spews from the lips of so many

4) but in Hebrew culture, to call someone a fool was to accuse them of being both stupid and godless

4. I think what Jesus is implying is that to slander, or malign, or scandalize, or tear-down a person – especially a spiritual brother – through verbal assault is something God takes a particularly dim view of

a. to take the life of a fellow human being or even to verbally denigrate them is to assault the sacredness of the image of God

Con. Jesus’ point is that we can kill each other with our words as easily as we can with a weapon. That’s why this is such hard saying. It’s also why Jesus immediately launches into his section on reconciliation. “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23–24, ESV)