Understanding The Sixth Commandment

I.  INTRODUCTION

The sixth commandment may be the most interesting commandment of all:

• The first person ever to be born on earth was a murderer named Cain who killed his own brother simply out of jealousy.  
• The three most popular heroes in the Bible were guilty of murder – Moses, David, and Paul.  
• Murder is the best-known command.  Most people can’t name all ten of the commandments, but if they know any, it’s this one – Don’t murder.  
• Murder is also the one command that everyone agrees with.  Probably 99.9% of the country’s population agrees that murder is wrong.  
• God used the sin of murder to redeem the human race.  It was through the murder of His Son that God saved us from sin.  
• Murder is the one sin that probably nobody in our church has violated.  I doubt anyone in our church has actually murdered someone.  I can’t say that about any other command.  
• Finally, murder is a sin that has been committed by every member of our church, although most don’t realize it.

II.  HOW PREVALENT IS THE SIN OF MURDER TODAY?

The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in history.  

• Zbigniew Brzezinkski served as the national security director for Jimmy Carter.  In his book, Out of Control, he wrote that the word that best describes the twentieth century is “mega-death.”  He said that four human beings alone murdered 175 million people:  Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.  
• That’s more than half the population of the United States, and more than the entire populations of France and the UK combined.  

That was the last century.  Have we learned our lesson?  No.  

• In 2016 there were 17,250 murders in the United States.   
• That’s a murder every thirty minutes.  
• The city of Chicago has the worst murder rate.  Last year there were 681 murders.   

Three of the deadliest mass shootings in our country have occurred in the last five months.  

• In February 2018 a gunman in Florida killed 17 people.  
• In November of 2017, a gunman in Texas killed 26 people in a Baptist church, which was the largest mass shooting in Texas history.  
• In October a gunman in Las Vegas killed 58 people.  
• In 2016 a man in Orlando shot and killed 49 people.

And then there is the biggest form of murder of all in our country – abortion.  

• In fact, abortion is the leading cause of death in America.  
• As of 2017, more than 60 million unborn children have been murdered in the womb since Roe v. Wade.    
• That’s an additional 1.3 million murdered children every year.  
• That’s more than 3,000 children murdered every day. 

As Pope John Paul II said, we are living in a “culture of death.”  

If ever there was a culture, a society, a time in history when people needed to hear God’s word about murder and the sanctity of human life, it is right now.  

III.  WHY IS MURDER SO PREVALENT TODAY?

The first reason has to do with worldview.  The dominant worldview in America is atheistic evolution.  

• Where do we come from?  Nowhere.  We’re an accident.  
• Why are we here?  No reason.  
• What happens after death?  Nothing.  
• What are people?  Just highly intelligent animals.  
• What’s the right way to treat people?  Who knows?  It’s all relative.  There’s no such thing as objective truth, or objective morality.  What’s wrong for you may not be wrong for me.

What happens when a large percentage of the population begin thinking this way?  The Bible tells us.  Proverbs 29:18 (CSB) says, “Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.”  Without belief in God and His word, people run wild.  They do whatever they feel like, with no regard for each other, and no fear of God.  And that’s what’s happening in America today.  

Another possible reason for our culture of death can possibly traced to violent entertainment.  

• By the time an average American youth has reached the age of 18, he has witnessed more than 80,000 murders via television, movies, or video games.  
• In 1998 the American College of Forensic Psychiatry conducted a comprehensive review of scientific studies on the relationship between violence on the screen and violence in real life.  Out of a thousand studies, more than 980 established a definite link between violence on the screen and violence in real life.  According to the best estimates, media violence has doubled America’s homicide rate.  (Philip Ryken, Written in Stone, p. 140)
• Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, who taught marksmanship for the United States Army, was called upon to suggest why young boys who had never fired a real gun before could walk into a high school and kill with military precision.  He pointed out that video games were turning young American males into trained killers, with an instinct for the trigger and with an eye for an aim unlike anything any military force had ever seen before. (Al Mohler, Words From the Fire, p. 115)

IV.  TEXT

Exodus 20:13 (CSB) says, “Do not murder.”  

In Hebrew it is just two words.  “No murder.”

V.  WHAT IS MURDER?

The King James Version is how most people know the Ten Commandments.  Unfortunately it confuses things.  It says, “Thou shalt not kill.”  But the sixth commandment doesn’t forbid all killing; only a particular type of killing.  It forbids murder.  

What is murder?  

• Mark Rooker defines it as “the willful killing of the innocent.”  
• Philip Ryken defines it as killing unlawfully.  
• Phil Johnson defines it as “the willful taking of human life for any unlawful purpose.”  
• Al Mohler defines it as “the unauthorized, malicious, and intentional killing of human beings.”  

VI.  MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MURDER

1) The sixth commandment does not forbid capital punishment.  (Ex 21:12, 14; Rm 12:19; 13:4)

2) The sixth commandment does not forbid killing in war.  (Deut 20:17; 1 Sam 15:3)

• Over the centuries Christians have developed an ethic for warfare called Just War Theory.  Click here to learn more.

3) The sixth commandment does not forbid killing in self-defense. (Ex 22:2)

4) The sixth commandment does not forbid killing animals.  (Gen 9:3; Acts 10:11-13)

VII.  WHY IS MURDER WRONG?

1) To murder is to rob God of His glory.  (Gen 1:27; Gen 9:5-6)

2) To murder is to rob God of His sovereignty.  (Ps 24:1)

3) To murder is to destroy God's temple (1 Cor 6:19)

4) To murder is to destroy God's masterpiece.  (Eph 2:10)

5) To murder is to destroy the object of God's deepest affection.  (Jn 3:16)

VIII.  HOW IS THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT BROKEN?

1) Homicide.  

• Google defines homicide as “the deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another; murder.”
• This includes such things as killing with a weapon; with poison; by depriving someone of what they need for life; by exposing someone to conditions that are impossible to survive; by ordering or requesting the murder of someone; by consenting to murder; by watching a murder and not doing everything in your power to stop it; by false accusing or convicting someone, which leads to their death.

2) Suicide.

• Stats on suicide.

3) Abortion.

• Quotes on Abortion.
• Six Biblical reasons that life begins at conception.  

4) Neglect.  (1 Jn 3:17; Pr 24:11)

5) Murderous actions and attitudes.  (Mt 5:21-22; 1 Jn 3:15)

IX.  WHAT IS THE POSITIVE APPLICATION OF THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT?

• To highly value and diligently preserve all human life.  

(To listen to or view this sermon, Click Here.)