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00:03 Good morning. Morning. Okay. Don't get tangled up. Okay. All right. Now,
00:11 see whether this works. Let me tell you a true story.
00:18 Uh, okay. There. Now, this uh person in the middle is Jean,
00:24 and she lives in Rwanda. and she and her husband Nicholas are uh
00:29 were tootssis and they were very good friends with another man all their lives
00:34 a man who was a hoou called Innocent. Now Innocent would uh come to their
00:39 house, bring them fish, have banana beer with them. And then in 1990, as many of
00:44 you know, uh ethnic tensions ignited in Rwanda and the Hoous stopped talking to
00:50 the Totsis. And in Jean's village, one of the hulu neighbors told all the tootsies to come out and line up in the
00:57 street and say, "We're going to kill you." And she cried out, "Why? We've been neighbors for all these years. You
01:03 know, we all friends together. Why are you doing this?" And they said, "We are
01:08 no friends with snakes like tootsies. Snakes are all the same. You know, you if you kill the big one and you don't
01:14 kill the baby one, they'll grow up and bite you in the end." In other words, we're going to kill all of you, big and
01:20 small alike. Now, it was unbelievable to Jean that people can change so quickly, you know,
01:26 from being good friends and neighbors to suddenly being filled with hatred. And her husband thought, "This is
01:32 impossible. You know, the hoou our hoou neighbors will never kill us." But Jean had a bad feeling. She ran away with her
01:39 her her younger children to the jungle, but two eldest sons stayed behind thinking it was safe. It'll be fine. And
01:47 not long after she ran away, her her hoou friend, innocent, came by her house
01:52 and the two sons were hiding and he found them and he slashed them to bits. These are boys that he had been with all
01:60 his all their lives. And the next day, her husband was on the way to work and he was killed. Uh he never made it back
02:06 home. Bloodshed, violence. This has been part
02:12 of our lives, part of the human condition from from Cain and Abel onwards all the way until now. And
02:17 hardly a day goes by that we do not hear of some senseless killing in the news in
02:23 the newspapers recently. We heard about people going to watch a movie in in Colorado and all got shot down.
02:30 Our topic today, the sixth commandment, thou shalt not kill or more accurately,
02:36 you shall not murder. Now, you might think, "Oh, I'll switch off now. You know, it's all about murder
02:42 and I've got nothing to do with me." I'm not a murderer. I've definitely kept this commandment, so I'm not guilty.
02:48 Okay, I heard the commandment on stealing two weeks ago, and I think I might be a bit guilty. And I heard the one last week on adultery, and you know,
02:55 maybe a little bit, but definitely not today. But actually, I want to ask you today,
03:01 are you sure you're not guilty of murder? And today we want to look at what this commandment truly means for us
03:07 and what are its implications for us today. So let's uh open in prayer, shall
03:13 we? Heavenly Father, we pray as we come to your word, you will humble us before
03:19 your word and you give us hearts that fear you. We pray by that your spirit will come to convict us of sin and to
03:27 enable us to repent and to live holy lives worthy of you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
03:37 Okay. I'm not sure how to make this work, but uh did I press something wrong? Okay. Can you get the next next? Okay.
03:44 All right. Um now this commandment do uh thou shalt not murder is really a very
03:50 short line in the Hebrew. It's just two words. Don't and this Hebrew word called ratsak. Okay. Now uh different
03:57 translations have it differently. So in the in the King James version, the famous line goes, "Thou shalt not kill."
04:03 And in most modern translations, we have, "Thou you shall not murder." Now, what's the difference between murder and
04:10 kill? Uh, next one, please. Is that the word rats does not actually include
04:17 judicial killing, that is capital punishment. It doesn't include killing in war. It doesn't include killing
04:24 animals. What it does include is uh intentional killing of a human person
04:30 premeditated and it's actually broader than the than the uh word murder in English. It
04:37 actually includes uh unintentional killing of human beings as well which we call manslaughter nowadays.
04:45 All right. So these uh two things are what constitutes the sixth commandment. Okay. Okay. Now, why why is it wrong for
04:53 us to kill an innocent fellow man? You might think that is really obvious. That
04:58 is self-evident. Of of course, it's wrong to murder. Of course, it's wrong to kill somebody. But not everybody
05:03 thinks so. Now, there's a well-known uh Australian philosopher and ethicist.
05:09 Okay, I think I have got his picture up here somewhere. Yeah, this guy Peter Singer. Now, he used to work in MES
05:15 University, but now I think he's gone to Princeton in the US. He argues that it is not necessarily wrong to kill an
05:21 innocent human person because he says a human person to qualify to be a person
05:27 you must have three things. You must have rationality which is you must be able to think rationally. You must have
05:34 autonomy that is you must have the ability to make decisions. Okay. And you must have self-consciousness. That is
05:40 you must be actually awake and aware. So if you don't have any of these three things, you're not a person and you can
05:46 be in you can be killed really. Okay. So in his argument, abortion is not murder.
05:54 Uh killing newborn babies is justified even those who have been born a after
05:59 they've been born because they are not rational. They're not autonomous. Thanks. killing people with Alzheimer's
06:07 disease, severely demented people, people in a coma, that's not wrong because they've stopped being persons
06:12 according to his definition. See, the problem is that in a world without God, people make up their own
06:19 standards of what is right and wrong. There is nothing to tell tell them this is right and this is wrong. And the
06:24 result is there is really no reason why we should not kill some people perhaps
06:30 the very young, perhaps the very old if it suits us. And this kind of thing was
06:35 was seen in for example Nazi Germany where they killed lots of other people. They killed gypsies. They killed the
06:41 Jews. They killed uh people who were uh mentally disabled and so on. But what
06:46 does the Bible teach us? Bible teaches us the sanctity of human
06:52 life. God actually condemns the taking of all human life.
06:57 So this is the principle from Genesis chapter 9. God says, "For your lifeblood, I will surely demand an
07:03 accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal and from each man too, I will demand an accounting for the life
07:09 of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be
07:15 shed. For in the image of God has God made man." Now, the reason why it is
07:22 morally wrong to kill a human being is because man is made in God's image. That
07:29 means when we kill somebody, we actually expressing how much we hate God because
07:34 that person bears God's image. That person was made to resemble God and
07:40 represent God. Now, this is one of the most serious crimes. Most societies take it to be one of the most serious crimes
07:46 that we can ever commit. God says that the shedding of blood must be paid for
07:51 with blood. Now, I'm sure every one of you knows today that murder is wrong. I hope I'm
07:58 not uh speaking to anyone who has ever murdered anyone or who will go on to murder anyone. Okay. So I don't think I
08:04 want to kind of belabor this point. Okay. We could spend more time thinking about some of the practical implications
08:10 of this. For example, we could talk more about abortion. We could talk more about euthanasia. And these things are
08:16 interesting to me as a doctor especially euthanasia because I deal with older patients and sometimes uh you know the
08:23 distinction between euthanasia and withdrawing medical treatment is very relevant to people like me but I don't
08:29 think I want to bore all of you guys with that because maybe it's not that relevant for you in your lives. So I want to move on to other things about
08:36 this commandment because it's actually broader than just actual physical murder. Now I want to move to another uh
08:42 aspect the second aspect of this commandment which is manslaughter and that is carelessness with human life.
08:49 Now you might think I have not murdered anyone. I fulfilled the sixth commandment. But the commandment covers
08:55 more than just actual murder. So I want to look at an old testament passage quickly which actually uses the exact
09:02 word rats that we saw just now in the sixth commandment. It's a very long passage but I won't read the whole
09:07 thing. I'll just tell you basically what it's about. So in the book of numbers, God gave laws to the uh to the nation of
09:13 Israel and God told them set aside six towns or six cities as what we call
09:20 cities of refuge. Now in those days they didn't have uh court system, they didn't
09:25 have uh police to administer capital punishment for murderers. So what they
09:30 did is the family members of the murdered victim actually took up the role of avenging the death. Okay, they
09:37 had the legal right to kill the person who had murdered their family member. And that person is called the avenger of
09:44 blood, the avenger. Okay. Now, if anyone accused of murder was to flee to one of
09:51 these cities, the avenger could not touch them until the the elders of the city had judged the case. And uh if this
09:58 person was actually a murderer, he would be killed. He would be uh executed. But he had to have a proper trial first.
10:07 That's what this is about. Now just following on from that. Now this law made it very clear. Okay. What kind of
10:13 things count as murder? If you strike someone with an iron object, that counts
10:18 as murder. You kill basically if you kill with any weapon of any sort, it counts as murder. Whether it's of iron,
10:24 of stone, of wood, there is an intention to harm because you have used a weapon. So any death that results counts as
10:31 murder and you deserve the death penalty. Now, if you get involved in an argument with somebody and you bring
10:38 along something that could cause the person to die and that you end up killing that person, you are counted
10:43 guilty of murder. And basically the principle is anything that is done with
10:50 uh I got it here. Anything that is done with malice
10:55 uh I think it's on the next page. Anything that is done with malice, a forethought counts as murder. Now today
11:02 we call that premeditation. That is there is a prior intention to harm. Okay, that counts as murder.
11:09 But there's another situation. If this death resulted from an unintentional
11:16 thing, it was an accident. Okay, there was no intent to kill, then the death penalty is not warranted because it
11:22 doesn't count as murder. This kind of killing is what we call manslaughter. And this person is allowed to stay in
11:28 the uh this uh killer is allowed to stay in the city of refuge and his life would
11:34 be spared. But he's not allowed to leave uh the uh he must stay there until the
11:40 death of the high priest uh in Jerusalem. Okay. If he did leave, then
11:46 if he ever left the limits of the city, then the avenger of blood could go and
11:52 kill him. He had the right to do that. So he must stay there until the death of the high priest and only after that the
11:58 penalty was uh was dissolved. Okay, the death has been paid for with the death
12:03 of the high priest and he can go back to his property without being killed. Now what do we actually learn from this you
12:10 know archaic law in the old testament. See we we learn how serious it is to
12:15 take human life even if it is accidental. Okay. The the the the sixth commandment
12:23 doesn't just cover murder. It also covers manslaughter. Now, it's not as serious a crime as murder, but it is
12:30 just is something that still needs to be punished. This man could not have his freedom. He had to stay in this city of
12:36 refuge and not go back to his own hometown. Why? You might ask, why does God hold somebody responsible for
12:42 something that is accidental? He didn't intend to do it. I think the best answer is that although he had no intention to
12:49 kill, his crime was being careless with human life. He didn't take adequate
12:54 precautions to protect and safeguard human life. And so now his penalty is he
13:00 has to be more cautious about his own life that he doesn't lose it.
13:06 Another law in the in the Old Testament, this one quite a uh pro probably
13:11 relevant to our architects here. When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not
13:17 bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof. Now, here is a an Old Testament law
13:24 dealing with accidental death or preventing accidental death. See, in
13:30 those days, people had flat rooftops and people would go up to the rooftop and, you know, I don't know what they did up
13:35 there, dry their clothes or whatever. Okay? So if you built the house, you had to put some kind of parapet or some kind
13:41 of preventive railing around the roof so that people would not accidentally fall over because if they did fall over, the
13:48 guilt of bloodshed would be yours. The house owners, you'll be guilty for that death. So this goes to show us that the
13:57 sixth commandment that God gave, it's not just about uh it's not just a negative command. Don't do something.
14:03 It's also a positive commandment to protect be careful to protect the lives
14:09 of other people. See, we all have a duty of care to others, even people that we
14:14 do not know, strangers. So, how does this apply today? I can think of lots of applications. For
14:20 example, if you drive a car, don't drive your car recklessly and endanger the lives of other people on the roads and
14:27 endanger the lives of motorcyclists and pedestrians. Okay? If you're an employer, make sure that your employees
14:33 do not have to risk their lives in their work. That you give them adequate safety. Okay? If you are an architect or
14:40 a builder or contractor or engineer, make sure that those things that you design and build are actually safe. That
14:47 you don't try to save money and use inferior materials and then the whole thing comes collapsing down and people's
14:53 lives are lost. Okay? If you're a doctor, make sure you take great care in treating your patients. And even if
14:60 you're a housewife, don't put your flower pots on the on the edge, you know, waiting to fall over and hit
15:05 somebody on the head, you know, or or or, you know, have water, stagnant water everywhere, waiting for people to get
15:11 dangi fever, things like that, you know, common things that show us that we have a duty of care.
15:18 Now the the the the six commandments even broader than just that murder and
15:24 manslaughter. So when we look specifically at the sixth commandment or when we just look
15:30 at it uh in the broader implications we might think oh it's easy to keep this commandment. All I have to do is not
15:35 murder anyone. But actually Jesus in his teaching in the New Testament showed us the true meaning of this commandment.
15:42 And the true meaning of this commandment has to do with avoiding hatred which is the underlying heart attitude that leads
15:49 to all murder. Okay. So here's the passage from the sermon on the mount and Jesus says this.
15:57 You have heard that it was said to the people long ago. So Jesus quotes from these uh ten commandments. Do not murder
16:04 and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone
16:09 who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother,
16:16 Raqqa, is answerable to the Sanhedrin, but anyone who says, "You fool," will be
16:21 in danger of the fire of hell. So Jesus is saying that the sixth
16:27 commandment does not just forbid murder, it also forbids anger and verbal abuse.
16:33 See, Jesus goes straight to the root source of the problem. People don't just
16:39 kill somebody out of the blue. You see, it always starts in the heart as hatred.
16:44 It's not just a physical action. And that is what Jesus deals with. So, there are a few symptoms of hatred that Jesus
16:52 actually deals with here. And the first one we've looked at is the problem of
16:57 anger and contempt. So, just back to this passage.
17:03 Okay. Now Jesus says that if you murder, you are subject to judgment. But if you
17:08 are angry with your brother, you are also equally subject to judgment. The same penalty.
17:15 Okay? Anger deserves judgment. Now we sometimes we don't think twice about calling somebody stupid idiot, you know,
17:21 you loser, things like that. We bendy those words around. It rolls off our breath so easily, isn't it? And we
17:27 give ourselves lots of excuses. But Jesus says if you call somebody raqa which is I guess equivalent with idiot
17:35 you are liable to the uh to the Sanhedrin which in those days was the highest court of the Jews. It had 71
17:41 members and if you say fool something like that you are in danger of
17:46 being thrown into hell. And I don't think Jesus was joking. I don't think he was exaggerating.
17:53 Now you probably don't think that saying things like this will lead you to go to hell. But that's what Jesus tells us. He
17:59 warns us the kind of anger that leads people to uh call people idiot to call
18:07 people and so on is the same anger that is responsible for murder. And so
18:14 if you have said these things and you have thought these things you have murder in your heart that's what Jesus is saying and you are liable.
18:21 Now history has actually shown us that given the right circumstances anyone can
18:26 kill. An ordinary person can actually become a murderer. Okay? You can look at
18:31 the history of uh of Germany in the second world war. You can look at the history of Cambodia and so on. Ordinary
18:39 people can turn into murders in and Rwanda the one that I gave earlier. So don't think that you can never kill.
18:46 If you have that kind of anger in your heart, given the right circumstances, you could be a murderer.
18:52 Jesus says, "Control your anger. Eliminate all kinds of verbal abuse."
18:58 Now, the next uh symptom of hatred that Jesus deals with is resentment. Okay?
19:04 Resentment. So, let me read to you uh the next part of this uh passage. Therefore, Jesus says, if you are
19:10 offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift
19:17 there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
19:25 So, this problem is an an unwillingness to be reconciled with your brother. So,
19:31 this case that Jesus uh brings out is actually the other party is the guilty party. They've uh no sorry you are the
19:38 guilty party. Sorry you are the guilty party. You have done something that they have have offended the other party. Okay
19:43 they have a grievance against you. Now in those days the Jews all worshiped in Jerusalem. They brought their sacrifices
19:49 to Jerusalem uh there. And imagine if you were a Jew at a temple and you've
19:54 bound the legs of your animal, okay? Put it on the altar ready to be slaughtered. And now you start praying to God and
20:01 thinking confessing your sins to God as you should when you are offering the sacrifice. And suddenly you remember as
20:06 you're doing that that you've done something and this other brother has got something against you. And Jesus is
20:13 saying what do you do now? He says don't sacrifice the animal first. You go
20:19 immediately get reconciled with your brother and then only you come back and
20:24 offer your gift to God. And even if your brother is in Galilee 100 miles away, go
20:29 and do that first and then come back to Jerusalem and offer your gift to God. So what Jesus is saying is that
20:35 reconciliation takes number one priority because when you come to God in worship,
20:43 you ask for forgiveness from God. What must you do before that? You must repent of your sin in order to be forgiven. But
20:50 if you have repented uh from your sin, how could you withhold
20:55 uh how could you be unwilling to ask for forgiveness from somebody that you have wronged? Isn't it? It doesn't tally. It
21:00 doesn't make sense. If you if you're unwilling to ask for forgiveness, it shows that you haven't truly repented of
21:06 sin. See, repentance is only sincere if you also take practical steps to make
21:13 right the things that you have done wrong. And so Jesus says no point to give sacrifice to God if you harbor this
21:21 kind of resentment in your heart. And for us today, it means it's no point to come and worship God and sing wonderful
21:28 songs and pray loudly when we are unwilling to ask for forgiveness from
21:33 our brother or sister. If you are aware of something that you
21:38 have done against your brother and sister, Jesus says first go and seek reconciliation. That takes priority even
21:46 over worship and after that you can come back and worship as much as you like.
21:52 Now, but what if you are not the guilty party? What if you are the offended
21:57 party? Now, Jesus doesn't deal with that situation here, but he deals with that situation later on in Matthew 18, and
22:04 we're going to look at that later. Okay? So, the symptoms of hatred, anger,
22:11 resentment, and thirdly, vengefulness, vindictiveness, wanting to take revenge.
22:17 And Jesus says in the same uh chapter, you have heard that it was said eye for
22:22 eye and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone
22:28 strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him
22:35 have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles, and give to the one who asks
22:42 you, do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Now this is a
22:47 very problematic passage for us, isn't it? Because it sounds so unrealistic. How can anyone? It's impossible, you
22:54 know, to do this. Okay, you know, if you get slapped on one cheek, how many of you would actually say, "Okay, this one,
22:60 oh, sorry, right cheek. Oh, this one also." Okay. No, right. I mean, it's just ridiculous, right? Why is what's
23:05 Jesus saying? It sounds quite impractical. I mean, if Jesus if really we we do this as Christians, people will
23:11 be taking advantage of us, isn't it? Left, right, and center. We'll be at their mercy. Perhaps we all will be in
23:16 poverty because anytime people ask for money, we have to give, isn't it? So, and our lives will be in danger as well
23:22 because you know we are not allowed to do anything in self-defense when people attack us who just stand there and take it. Is that what Jesus is really asking
23:29 us to do? Now, for us to understand uh this uh and I think it's a hard passage, we need to
23:35 understand a bit the Old Testament background of this law. You see in in the Old Testament, God gave this law to
23:41 Israel in Leviticus. If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death. Anyone
23:49 who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution life for life. If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever is
23:54 done must be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to
24:00 be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death. In other
24:07 words, uh the a kind of like punishment fits the crime kind of uh law. You see, in
24:15 the in the ancient world, justice depended on your status in
24:20 society. Perhaps a bit like modern days here. You see, if you were a rich man
24:25 and you killed someone, well, perhaps you could get away with just paying a fine.
24:31 But if you were a slave and you knocked out the tooth of a rich man, you could be dead. You might have to pay with your
24:37 life. You see, it was unfair. And in the Old Testament law, God gave this principle eye for an I to help the
24:45 courts to determine the suitable punishment for every crime. The principle is the punishment must fit the
24:52 crime. It must not be too lenient for the crime. It must not be too harsh for the crime. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
24:60 life for life. So that means if somebody was caught stealing a loaf of bread, you
25:05 can't chop off their hand. That's too severe a punishment. If somebody went and punched your child, you can't go and
25:12 hunt him down and kill him. That's too severe a punishment. See, this law was meant to restrict
25:19 retaliation, to restrict vengeance. It was meant to secure justice. It was a a kind law meant to restrict uh people
25:27 having vendettas, okay? And the escalation of violence.
25:33 See, but by Jesus' time, the the Jewish rabbis had had turned this law from
25:38 something to restrict vengeance into something to promote vengeance. You see, it says the Bible says, "Eye for an eye,
25:44 tooth for a tooth, so I can do all this." And they conveniently ignore the teaching in the rest of the Old Testament. You see in the Old Testament
25:52 uh especially in this verse 18 do not seek revenge in Leviticus do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of
25:60 your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. This is God's command in the Old Testament. Now you
26:06 might think that the Old Testament is full of you know uh uh vindictiveness, vengefulness, death penalties and so on.
26:13 But this is the the same teaching as Jesus gave in the Old Testament already.
26:19 The sixth commandment is not just about murdering. It's about the heart attitude that says I want to take revenge. I want
26:26 my own back. Okay. Jesus says do not resist an evil person.
26:34 Okay. And what he means by that is not do not uh defend yourself when your life
26:40 is in danger. It doesn't mean no self-defense. It means no retaliation.
26:46 You see those scenarios that Jesus gave here are all situations where their life was not at risk. Okay, a slap on the
26:53 right cheek. Now, how do you slap somebody on the right cheek? Most people are right-handed. So, you actually have to slap them with the back of your hand,
26:58 isn't it? To slap their right cheek. So, actually this was a traditional insult in their culture. It was a way to insult
27:04 someone just like in our culture maybe if you pet someone on the head is like an insult. Okay. So, same same here. If
27:10 you slap somebody on the right cheek, it's a a backhanded slap. It's an insult. it was not a threat to their
27:16 life. And the next uh example, if somebody wants to sue you, they drag you
27:22 to court and they want you to pay uh restitution for something. Okay? Maybe you owe them something and they drag you
27:28 to court, they sue you, they want to get some more back from you. Jesus says, give them even your cloak as well. Okay?
27:35 The next uh uh example is when somebody in authority abuses their authority.
27:41 Okay? somebody usually a Roman soldier in those times could force you as a Jewish person to to walk with them to
27:47 carry a load or whatever go with them two miles and the last example
27:53 I think is relating to uh he's talking about your enemies your opponents right
27:58 so somebody who is your enemy who comes and asks you okay give me I I am in need
28:05 now okay and Jesus says do not turn away from that person
28:11 See, Jesus says when somebody insults you, don't take revenge. Don't desire
28:16 revenge. Don't try to get back at them. If they sue you, give them more than that what they ask for. It's not and if
28:22 especially if your friend who who has been your enemy all these years is in dire need and they come before you and
28:30 gravel before you, you are not to say to them, serve you right, you know,
28:37 you know, you know, or something like that. Okay? No, you are supposed to help
28:42 them, give them what they ask for. Do not turn away from that person.
28:48 You see, Jesus does not allow a Christian to take revenge. No revenge. Now, this is a very, very
28:55 hard teaching for us. And you might think then Christians would be very pitiable because there's no justice for
29:01 Christians if we cannot take revenge. But that's not true because justice is done by God. We must not take the law
29:07 into our own hands. The Bible says vengeance is God's work
29:13 and God will see that justice is done. And we can trust that God's vengeance is
29:18 more fair and more just than anything that we can do ourselves. So this passage in Romans tells us same thing.
29:26 Do not take revenge, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, and he
29:31 quotes from the Old Testament, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is
29:39 hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.
29:45 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So instead of revenging
29:52 ourselves, we ought to be doing good and showing love to our enemies.
29:58 But don't worry that justice will not be done. God will see to it that it will be
30:03 done. Leave room for God's wroth and God's justice will be far more fearful
30:08 than anything we can conjure up. Leave it in God's hands.
30:14 Now, at the end of the day, when you get rid of hatred, you get rid of anger, get
30:20 rid of resentment and revenge, what do you have left?
30:25 Love. See the opposite of murder, the opposite
30:30 of hatred is love. See, God gave this commandment to love your neighbor. How
30:36 many of you have heard of the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself? Yes, most of us have heard it. It's a very um well-known commandment.
30:43 Now, this commandment was was actually given in the context of a discussion about the sixth commandment. So, let me
30:50 show it to you in context. Sorry, I didn't put it in here, but it's here. Yeah. All right. So we read this
30:57 earlier. Do not seek revenge uh but love your neighbor as yourself. If you look up here, do not do anything that
31:03 endangers your neighbor's life. I am the Lord. That means no murder, no man's slaughter. It is basically a restatement
31:09 of the sixth commandment. Do not hate your brother in your heart. So from murder, we've moved to hatred. You see,
31:16 this connection is made in the Old Testament itself between murder and hatred. Uh and then do not seek revenge
31:23 or bear a grudge. So retaliation is also dealt with. The opposite of all this is
31:28 to love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, the heart of the sixth
31:35 commandment is love. When we expand this commandment to its fullest, do not
31:40 murder. It actually says love your neighbor as yourself. See, God does not
31:46 know any middle ground between hate and love. It's not I neither hate him nor
31:51 love him. You either love or you hate. There's no middle ground. And that's why
31:56 Jesus goes on to say here. You have heard that it was said, "Love
32:03 your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be
32:10 sons of your father in heaven." He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous
32:16 and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
32:22 Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than
32:28 others? Do not even the pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
32:34 father is perfect. Now, this uh here, love your neighbor is
32:40 a command in the Old Testament, but hate your enemy is never found in the Old Testament. This was a uh a kind of
32:46 misinterpretation by the Jewish rabbis that says, "Okay, God tells us to love our neighbor. Everybody else is our
32:52 enemy and we must hate them." Okay, but that's not what uh God actually taught. The you see the rabbis taught that Jews
32:58 only needed to love other Jews. Who's our neighbor? They replied, "Neighbor is anyone who's a Jew." So anyone's a
33:05 gentile, anyone else, they're not your neighbor. So actually one of the rabbis wrote in the past, if you find a gentile
33:12 drowning in the ocean, okay, you don't have to lift a finger to help. In fact, you should not help him as a as a
33:17 gentile. See, that was their law. Now Jesus tells them, no, that is wrong
33:22 interpretation of God's law. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Now, how hard is it to do that? I
33:31 think most of us have not been persecuted for our faith. But if we are
33:36 persecuted for being Christians, how hard is it to pray for our persecutors?
33:43 And why why should why should we have to do that? Well, it says here because we
33:48 are sons of our father in heaven. Okay, that means we have to imitate our
33:54 father. We are his children. Just like your own children may look like you and
34:01 they talk like you and they even walk like you. You see, we must resemble, we
34:06 must imitate our father in heaven. See, God doesn't just send the sun and
34:12 the rain on good people, on people who love him, on people who praise him, on
34:17 people who obey him. God sends his son and his rain on everyone. even those who
34:24 curse him, even those who hate him, those who say God doesn't exist, he gives them all of this equally. So if
34:31 you love only those who love you, what good is it? You are no better, it says,
34:36 than the greatest sinners in society. In their day, it was the tax collectors who were the uh the pagans were considered
34:42 as the greatest sinners. I don't know what it is today. Perhaps the the criminals, those who go and rob people
34:47 and kill people and gangsters, things like that. No, as God's children, you ought to be better than them. You ought
34:55 to be perfect. In fact, perfect just as your heavenly father is perfect.
35:01 So, here it says, "Love, love." Now, I want to come back to uh the story
35:08 of Jean. Okay, I want to think about the issue of forgiveness for the rest of this sermon. Okay, because we talk about
35:16 love, but in a fallen world, how do we actually apply it? It implies forgiveness.
35:22 So this lady Jean that I mentioned before uh okay what happened? She ran away and
35:29 eventually uh after 100 days of horrible murder 800,000 Tootsie people were
35:35 killed by Hutus and Jean had lost the two eldest sons and her husband and she couldn't get it
35:41 out of her system. She couldn't get the pain and the hatred out of her. Everywhere she went she thought about
35:47 her her dead family members. She couldn't stop talking about it and scolding people every time she met them.
35:54 And then two years later, the killer of her her two boys came back from hiding
36:00 to live in a village in Rwanda. And this is that person's wife
36:05 apparently. It's a true story. And one day, Jean passed this man on the street
36:12 and she looked him in the eye and said, "People say that you killed my children." And he said, "Yes, I did. I
36:20 killed your family." And he asked her at that moment for forgiveness.
36:26 Now, of course, she didn't find it in her heart at that time to forgive him. But slowly, he thought about it and it
36:34 took her a long time, but she eventually went to him and said, "I forgive you." Now, of course, he had forgiven him, but
36:40 he still had to go to jail for his crimes for 27 years, apparently. And uh she would even visit him in prison. She
36:47 would bring him food and when they talked they talked like old friends. They never ever brought up the past
36:53 again. Forgiveness. See this topic of loving our neighbor
36:59 without anger, without resentment, without vengefulness is all tied up with this issue of forgiveness.
37:06 Now forgiveness is a lot of us have a lot of confused thinking about what is actually forgiveness. So I want to think
37:12 a bit about this. Now many of you may have a grudge against somebody. It could be somebody in church, even a brother or
37:18 sister in the church. Now, I want to say that forgiving is one of the hardest things that you can ever do. There are
37:25 few things that are more unnatural for us than to forgive. But there are also few things which are more holy and
37:33 godlike than to forgive. See, to forgive is one of the highest expressions of
37:39 being like our heavenly father and like our Lord Jesus.
37:44 What is forgiveness? I want to I I had actually a lot of stuff on this but I thought it would take too long so I've summarized it for you. What is
37:50 forgiveness? Firstly, how do we define it? What does it mean when we forgive somebody? Now, in order to understand
37:57 this, let us think what does it mean when God forgives us? See, when we sin
38:03 against God, we owe God a moral debt and we deserve punishment from him. But when
38:10 God forgives us, it means that he cancels that debt and he releases us from the punishment that we deserve. Now
38:17 God only forgives us when we repent. That is the principle throughout the Bible. God does not forgive the
38:24 unrepentant who persist in sin. So from this we learn a few things about
38:29 forgiveness. Okay? One is that we learn that forgiveness must involve both
38:36 parties. It is something that happens between two parties. Now that may sound obvious, but actually a lot of people
38:42 have the concept that forgiveness is some feeling that I have in my heart with that person. It doesn't matter if
38:48 we haven't sorted things out. As long as I decide not to feel bitter in my heart anymore, not to take revenge anymore,
38:54 then I have forgiven that person. Okay? But in the Bible, forgiveness is like shaking hands. You need two hands to
39:01 shake. So forgiveness is not just about your attitude to that person. It is also
39:06 about your relationship with that person. Okay. Forgiveness is not a unilateral private thing that does not
39:13 involve the other party. Okay. So what is forgiveness? Forgiveness means to release that other
39:20 person from moral liability just like what God has done for us and to commit yourself to being reconciled to that
39:27 person. It means reaching out to that person and you say you have no more obligation to
39:35 me. You do not owe me anything for what you have done to me. Okay? You can't say to somebody I forgive you but I want
39:42 nothing to do with you. Okay? That's not forgiveness. All right? Because forgiveness must affect your
39:48 relationship with that person. It must lead to a restored relationship. Otherwise, it is not real forgiveness.
39:55 When God forgives us, he reconciles himself. He reconciles us to himself.
40:01 And when I forgive somebody, I I'm saying I release you from from separation, from this uh relational
40:08 separation uh towards me. And I no longer hold you liable. I no longer
40:14 think that, you know, I no longer have a grudge against you. I don't hold that wrong against you anymore. I don't
40:19 condemn you for it anymore. I don't blame you for it anymore. And also it
40:24 includes no vengefulness. I no longer want revenge. I no longer want to punish
40:30 you for this. And it also includes being committed to reconciling with that
40:37 person. Okay. Now the second thing that we learn about forgiveness from God's forgiveness
40:44 is forgiveness is conditional. It's conditional on repentance. You see, we
40:52 must distinguish between being willing to forgive and actually forgiving.
40:60 All right? So, if we we are to offer forgiveness to people, we must be willing to forgive. This is
41:06 unconditional. Okay? If somebody comes to us asking for forgiveness, we have no right to say I don't want to forgive
41:11 you. We must forgive as a Christian. Okay? We must be willing to forgive. However, actual forgiveness is like
41:18 giving a gift to somebody. If they don't take it, if they don't receive it, you can't forgive them. Okay? You can't
41:24 grant it to them. It depends on their repentance. So if the guilty party does not ask for
41:32 repentance, has no interest in reconciliation, there can't be an actual forgiveness. There can only be a
41:39 potential offer of forgiveness. Now if we say no forgiveness um the
41:47 third thing that I haven't put on this slide I want to share is that forgiveness is costly.
41:53 Forgiveness is costly. It is not a cheap thing. Any one of you who have had to
41:59 forgive um a major wrong and some who has somebody who has done you a major wrong knows how hard it is to forgive.
42:06 It is an agony. It's a huge struggle. It takes a long time for you to actually come to the place where you can say I
42:12 will forgive. And even when you have made that decision, there's time many times where you're tempted to turn back
42:18 from that decision to forgive. Forgiveness is costly. And what do we learn? We learn that what did God have
42:24 to pay for forgiving us. God had to give up the life of his own son in order to
42:30 forgive us. Forgiveness is a costly thing. We must never expect that you know people should be able to forgive us
42:36 easily for the wrongs that we have done. You know forgiveness does not come cheap. It comes at great agony and cost
42:42 and many of these a lot of this cost is actually silent and private that you are not aware of. It is a struggle inside.
42:52 Now the next question the first question we dealt with is what is forgiveness?
42:58 Now what if I struggle with the reconciliation part that is I am willing to forgive. I have forgiven that person
43:05 but I just struggle to be reconciled to that person.
43:10 Now forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things. Okay. Forgiveness
43:16 is the first step which should lead to reconciliation. But forgiveness is the first step. It's not the whole of
43:22 reconciliation. when we forgive someone as I said earlier we are committing ourselves to a reconciliation but it
43:30 doesn't mean uh that it can be achieved overnight you see it can be a very long
43:36 process if the trust has gone from this relationship if the relationship is
43:42 deeply broken then it cannot be reconciled overnight it takes time for this trust to be
43:49 regained now often uh in some cases okay somebody
43:56 will be repeat offenders they'll do it they'll come say oh I'm so sorry please forgive me then they'll do it again and
44:02 they'll say please forgive me and then they'll do it again now how do we actually trust a person like that can we
44:07 be reconciled with such a person see often when that happens we do not
44:13 take their words at face value what we want to see is real genuine confirmation in their actions you see the tears and
44:20 the words are not enough there must be real change. We don't want to just hear I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We want to see in
44:27 their lives that they are really sorry. Isn't that true? I think that is a wise thing. Okay. Do not confuse forgiveness
44:34 with reconciliation. However, that doesn't mean that we are to just, you
44:39 know, uh hold this wrong in our hearts for the rest of our lives and refuse to uh forgive them fully. You know, we must
44:46 not keep bringing it up, using it as a weapon against them every time they do something against us. No. I think
44:52 forgiveness means that we are promising to do several things.
44:60 We promising I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you if I've really forgiven you. Okay? I will
45:07 not talk to others about this incident anymore. It's in the past. It's gone.
45:13 I will not allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.
45:19 Okay? It is part of the past. that is gone is cleared just like how God forgave us and I would
45:27 not demand that you earn my forgiveness. Okay, prove it to me or something. Earn
45:32 it. No, forgiveness comes free. It is a a gracious gift on our part. But
45:39 reconciliation, we must see evidence the fruit of repentance in their lives before we
45:44 actually can be fully reconciled. Now the next question, what if the
45:50 offending party doesn't ask for forgiveness? Okay. Now earlier on we looked at the case where we are the
45:56 wrong we are the wrong party and we should seek out you know our our neighbor to ask for forgiveness. But it
46:03 doesn't mean that in the opposite scenario we just sit back and wait for them to come and approach us. Jesus dealt with this situation here. And he
46:10 says that if your brother sins against you, you are the offended party. He's the offending party. you must go and
46:16 approach him as well. So let me read to you. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between
46:23 the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two
46:30 others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or
46:36 three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if
46:41 he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax
46:46 collector. So this is Jesus's uh procedure manual algorithm for dealing
46:52 with this situation where a Christian brother or sister has done something against us and they refuse to deal with
46:57 it. What do we do now? Well, the first step is to confront that brother or sister privately just between the two of
47:04 you. There's no need to bring it out into the open and tell everybody about this. And if he listens and he asks for
47:11 forgiveness, then you must forgive and reconcile with that brother or sister.
47:16 Now, if he doesn't, if he's stubborn, the next thing is to bring along two or three others as witnesses. Okay? And
47:24 hopefully they together with you should be able to convince him into repenting of his wrong. But what if he refuses?
47:32 Then the next step is to tell it to the whole church. it becomes a public matter and then it's up to the whole church to
47:38 talk to that person and to try to bring him to his senses. But if despite this he doesn't repent then you would treat
47:45 him as an unbeliever. Now remember that if he doesn't repent,
47:52 actual forgiveness is not possible because he has not repented. But you
47:57 must always be willing and ready to forgive. And that means not uh taking
48:04 revenge but leaving it to God to settle the score as we read earlier. Leaving it
48:09 to God's wrath. And the last case I want to think about is what if I am unwilling to forgive?
48:17 And that's probably the struggle that most of us might have. What if I'm the one unwilling to forgive? Now, I can't
48:22 say it better than Jesus. Let me read to you this parable just in case some of you don't know this parable. Okay. Peter
48:28 came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me up to seven times?" So,
48:34 he has caught some of Jesus teaching and he realized that Jesus is on about forgiving and loving and so on. So, he says, "Wow, I'm very good already. I
48:40 already can forgive seven times. That's a lot. Okay, that's asking a lot." And Jesus, I I tell you not seven times but
48:47 77 times. Actually, some translations is 70* 7. Okay? Doesn't mean that you tick
48:53 off each time until it gets to the bottom and then you stop forgiving. It means that you keep forgiving. You lose count. You throw away the records. And
49:01 Jesus tells this story. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who
49:06 wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was
49:12 brought to him. Now talent is about a million ringgit for us. So 10,000 talents is like 10 billion ringit. Okay,
49:18 imagine somebody owing that amount of money is no way you can ever repay it. 10 billion. Since he was not able to
49:25 pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. And the
49:31 servant fell on his knees before him. Be patient with me, he begged, I will pay back everything. Even though we know
49:36 he's no way of paying back, the servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the whole debt, and let him
49:42 go. That's a picture of God's forgiveness to us. But when that servant
49:47 went out, he found Sorry, I think I Yeah,
49:54 sorry. Yeah. When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 dinari. 100 dinaria would
50:01 be about uh about 20,000 ringgit. Still quite a lot of money, okay? But nothing
50:07 compared to 10 billion ringit, okay? So he grabbed him and began to choke him.
50:13 Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me. I will pay you back." But he refused. Instead,
50:19 he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. And when the other servants saw what had
50:25 happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the
50:31 master called the servant in. You wicked servant. He said, I canceled all that
50:37 debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In
50:45 anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. And this is how my
50:52 heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart.
50:58 Now from this parable we learn what should motivate our forgiveness. What
51:04 should be the basis the driving force behind our forgiveness. It's not that we forgive because forgiveness will help us
51:11 to move beyond our bitterness. Help us to be uh prevent us from being stuck in the past even though it may have that
51:17 effect. It's not that we forgive primarily for the sake of the other person to move beyond his guilt to
51:22 restoration even though it does have that effect. You see the the real reason for forgiving is because we are
51:29 forgiven. We are a forgiven people. So we must forgive. Now God is not telling us to
51:36 earn forgiveness with him that you know only if you forgive I will forgive you. No, we do not earn it. Forgiveness is
51:42 always undeserved. When God forgives us, we don't deserve it. And just like the other party doesn't deserve our
51:49 forgiving them. Forgiveness is always a gift. But Jesus is saying that God
51:55 expects forgiven people to be able to forgive readily.
52:00 If we have received grace and mercy from God, we must also be gracious and
52:06 merciful to others. If we have truly repented of sin and God has forgiven us,
52:11 we must be able to accept others who repent of their sins towards us. You
52:17 see, for us to squabble over tiny amounts of of offenses, okay, when we
52:23 have a huge mountain of offense before God that he has forgiven, it's just like two ants standing before Mount Everest
52:30 arguing which one is taller. Okay? See, all our petty offenses that we commit against each other, they are nothing
52:37 compared to what we owe to God. And yet, God has canled all that debt.
52:42 So Jesus says in Matthew in another chapter, if you forgive men when they sin against
52:48 you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not
52:56 forgive your sins. So the upshot is that refusing to forgive has got eternal consequences. It
53:03 is a very serious matter. Okay? Don't kid yourselves. Don't think that
53:08 forgiveness is optional for me. It's up to me. I will decide whether I want to forgive. If you are a forgiven person,
53:14 you must you cannot refuse to forgive. Jesus says if you refuse, you will end
53:21 up in hell. Just like the wicked servant in that parable, he was thrown into jail
53:27 to be tortured, which is a picture of hell. That is Jesus warning to us.
53:33 Now, brothers and sisters, God tells us, you shall not murder. And that includes
53:38 murder inside your heart. That includes hatred and anger and verbal abuse,
53:45 resentment, vengefulness, and unforgiving spirit. That is all murder. Is there somebody that you need
53:53 to forgive? Is there somebody that you need to ask for forgiveness?
53:59 Be honest with yourself. This is not trivial matter. God demands that we as his children must forgive. So don't wait
54:06 any longer. Jesus says, "Leave your gift at the altar and go and seek reconciliation immediately. Do it today,
54:14 right after the service. Do it now while you feel the urgency of God's word and
54:20 God's spirit speaking to you in your heart. And if you need prayer support,
54:26 come to the front after the service and someone will minister to you. For if you forgive men when they sin
54:33 against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not, your Father will not forgive your sins.
54:40 Let's pray. Our heavenly father,
54:47 we do fall short of your glory in thought, in word, and in deed all the
54:53 time. Lord, we know that you have already forgiven us all of our sins,
54:58 past and present, and even future. Our sin is so much worse than we
55:03 realize, just as your love is far more abounding than we realize.
55:10 Father, right now, we confess how much we take your forgiveness for granted.
55:15 We confess that we too have our 70* 7 scenarios that we refuse to deal with.
55:22 Please forgive us for harboring murder in our hearts. We may have forgiven seven times perhaps
55:28 and found it hard. But now we want the other party to pay. We want to be smug. We want to gossip and tell others not to
55:35 trust those people who have hurt us. We are unable to love our neighbor as ourselves.
55:42 Please forgive us. Please hear our cry. Come and apply the power of the gospel
55:47 to our hearts. Slay the wicked, unforgiving servant in all of us. And help each one of us to
55:54 forgive from the heart as you has forgiven us from your heart, oh father.
55:60 And make us like your son who took our 10,000 talents upon himself, who did not
56:06 retaliate when led like a lamb to slaughter. Fill us with his love that we might be
56:13 willing to let go of our misely 100 dinari. for in his name we pray. Amen.
