"You shall not
murder."
Exodus 20:13 (NIV)
No one needs to be reminded of the violence in our society. The recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado has put that fact in stark perspective for all of us. What happened there was evil and a horrifying example of what can lurk in the human heart.
Where did it begin? Sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, and politicians all offer their views, but many of them are conflicting views that bring us little closer to the truth. David Mandel, a psychologist, told Nashville Scene Magazine that the Goth movement, which the two killers in Littleton were a part of, was "not sinister, but tongue in cheek," and insisted that devotees "find beauty in dark things much the way others find beauty in bright and happy things." This is the kind of psychobabble that our culture has become all too comfortable with. But it is just plain wrong. How have we become so naïve about the evil that lurks in the human heart and the human potential for perversion?
A college professor in our area says it is acceptable for parents to kill their severely disabled infants. "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person," professor Peter Singer wrote in one book. "Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Singer, 52, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia will teach bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values beginning in July. Singer, who is considered the father of the international animal rights movement, has said that children less than one month old have no human consciousness and do not have the same rights as others. Can you believe it? Here is someone teaching our young people who apparently believes that an animal has more of a right to life than a one month old baby with a physical handicap!
Never before have so many been so involved in killing. Littleton and places like it certainly point that out. But I’m not just talking about the overt acts of killing in our society. I am talking about something broader than that.
Think for a moment of all the vicarious participation in and enjoyment of killing through television and movies in our society. All of us see literally thousands of killings each year. "But," you say, "these are just make believe. These people aren’t really being killed. They’re just actors." True. And we are not here to debate the television or movie violence. The point is, however, that the popularity of such fare is somewhat of a mirror of our culture. And it is probably a mirror of the human condition in general.
Humankind has always been involved in and fascinated by killing. Since the beginning of time, killers have existed. The first recorded homicide is found in Genesis, where Cain killed his brother Abel. However, prior to that, there was a killing of sorts. It happened when Satan, in the form of a serpent, deceived Eve and thereby brought death to the entire human race.
We see in the action of Satan, the real strategy of Satan. He is here to kill. His goal, and the goal of all who follow him, is death and destruction. God, on the other hand is for life. God created life. He is the giver of life. He gives us the temporary life we have here and now and is also the giver of the eternal life that we will enjoy forever. God is for life. He is not for killing. He is not for murder. That is clearly emphasized for us in the Sixth Commandment. There God says to His people, "You shall not murder." The King James Version has it, "Thou shalt not kill."
This brings us to an important question. What do we mean by killing? Do we mean war, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, or self-defense? Is this what God was speaking of in the Sixth Commandment? Is the commandment not to kill simply a commandment not to take human life in any form and under any circumstances? And is it a commandment limited to actions alone, or is more involved? What about the attitudes and emotions behind the actions –– things like hatred, jealousy, anger, greed, arrogance, and callous words? Aren’t these also murderous attitudes that kill? If these are included in the Sixth Commandment, we may be more guilty of killing than we realize.
A boy once asked, "Dad, how do wars begin?" His dad replied, "Well, take the First World War, that got started when Germany invaded Belgium." Immediately his wife interrupted him. "Tell the boy the truth. It began because somebody was murdered." The husband drew himself up with an air of superiority and snapped back, "Are you answering the question, or am I?" Turning her back upon him in a huff, the wife walked out of the room and slammed the door as hard as she could. When the dishes stopped rattling in the cupboard, an uneasy silence followed, broken at length by the son when he said, "Daddy, you don’t have to tell me any more; I know now."
Do you understand what evil lurks in your own heart? Could there be a murderer living in your own house, and could it be you? Understanding the implications of the Sixth Commandment becomes extremely important if it encompasses attitudes as well as actions. You may think that this commandment does not apply to you since you have never physically killed anyone. But if this commandment takes into account evil thoughts, attitudes, and intentions, then we are all in serious trouble. What are the implications of the Sixth Commandment for us?
The Sixth Commandment deals with the murderer in all of us. None of us are excluded from the range of its application. God gave it on Sinai. Jesus clarified its meaning in the Sermon on the Mount. As we consider its implications today, we may have to come face to face with things in our lives which we do not like to see or admit. But we must grapple with them. What about you? Are you willing to face the murderer in you?
You Must Encounter the Murderer in YouThe first thing you must be willing to do is to encounter the murderer in you. It is a necessary and important encounter for each of us.
It is important to understand the nature of this commandment. Listen to what God says: "You shall not murder." You may be more familiar with the translation that reads: "Thou shalt not kill." A better translation of the word from the Hebrew is "murder." It is clear in the Old Testament that God accepted capital punishment, war, and self-defense. What this commandment has in view is the taking of life for capricious reasons.
Behind it all is the view that life is sacred. Notice what God says in Genesis 9:6 (NLT), "Yes, you must execute anyone who murders another person, for to kill a person is to kill a living being made in God’s image." It is clear from this passage of Scripture that life is sacred because it is made in the image of God. I believe that from the Scripture we can conclude that life in all its aspects is sacred. Therefore, to destroy life is not only a sin against man, it is a sin against God.
Another important principle, which we must consider, is that attitudes precede actions. Since we are not robots, since we are thinking, feeling human beings with will and choice, our attitudes and intentions are key to our actions. It is in this area that we come face to face with the murderer in each of us.
You see, there is more than one way to kill a man. Listen to what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." Matthew 5:21-22 (NAS)
It is apparent from Jesus’ clarification of this Sixth Commandment that we all may be guilty of violating it. Jesus cuts through to the real issue. He reveals that attitudes can be as harmful as actions. Indeed, attitudes precede actions.
Leonard Holt was a paragon of respectability. He was a middle-aged, hard-working lab technician who had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for nineteen years. Having been a Boy Scout leader, an affectionate father, a member of the local fire brigade, and a regular church attender, he was admired as a model in his community. Until that image exploded in a well-planned hour of bloodshed one brisk October morning. A proficient marksman, Leonard Holt stuffed two pistols in his coat pockets and drove to the mill. He stalked slowly into his shop and began shooting with calculated frenzy. He filled several co-workers with two or three bullets apiece, firing more than thirty shots, killing some men he had known for more than fifteen years. When the posse found him standing defiantly in his doorway, he snarled, "Come and get me, you ________. I'm not taking any more of your _______!" Bewilderment swept the community. Puzzled policemen and friends finally found a train of logic behind his brief reign of terror. Down deep within the heart of Leonard Holt rumbled the giant of resentment. His monk-like exterior concealed the seething hatred within. The investigation yielded the following facts. Several victims had been promoted over him while he remained in the same position. More than one in Holt’s carpool had quit riding with him due to his reckless driving. The man was brimming with resentment — rage that could be held no longer. Beneath his picture in Time, the caption told the story: "Responsible, Respectable, and Resentful."
Attitudes lay the groundwork for actions to follow. Through our attitudes then, we may be as guilty before God as if we had committed the very act.
Jesus speaks of attitudes of anger, pride, ego, arrogance, and the like, as He expounds on the Sixth Commandment. He imposes the same judgment on the one with these attitudes as on the one who commits murder. You see, there is more than one way to kill a person. These attitudes also kill. They destroy a person’s dignity. They destroy a person’s self-worth. They kill a person’s spirit.
It is interesting the emphasis Jesus places on those attitudes that manifest themselves through our words. Take the arrogant egoistic attitude that causes someone to call his brother raca for instance. Raca means "empty-head" or "good for nothing." So when you arrogantly call someone an empty-head, blockhead, good for nothing, worthless, idiot, and things like these, check your attitude. Is it one of anger? Is it one of bitterness? Is it one of hatred? Is it one of prideful self-exaltation? Jesus condemns those attitudes as worthy of the same judgment as murder. He goes on to say that the kind of murderous hate-filled attitudes which cause someone to call someone else a fool causes the one having those attitudes to be deserving of hell. These are strong words indeed! But they come from the very mouth of Jesus. We must hear them.
Look into your own heart. What do you see there? Is there evil lurking there? Do you find yourself with attitudes that you should not have? Are there people you are angry with? Are there people you are bitter against? Are there people you hate? "He made me so mad I could have killed him." Beware! There could be a murderer in you.
What we see in Jesus’ words is a definite connection between physical violence and verbal violence. We can shoot people with a gun or with our tongues. We can kill them with bullet made of lead or bullets made of words. The origin is the same. It all comes from a hateful heart. God has made men and women in His image. When we depreciate them by hurling hateful, abusive, demeaning, insulting, and humiliating words at them, we sin against God. Who are we to decide that some people are not worthy, or valuable? What do we think we are doing when we call someone a blockhead, or loser, or fool, or some other epithet that is designed to put them down? Do we have the right to crush their spirits in that way? Absolutely not! When we look at the Sixth Commandment from this perspective, all of us must admit we are guilty at times of violating it.
C. S. Lewis, in a paragraph from his book Mere Christianity comments on the really deadly sins:
The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing with the human self which I must try to become; they are the animal self, and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it’s better to be neither.
Our attitudes are key. What kind of attitudes do you harbor in your heart? If we are honest, we have to admit that there are murderous attitudes in all of us at times. They should grieve our spirits. What can we do about them? When you come face to face with the murderer in you, there is only one recourse.
You Must Execute the Murderer in YouYou must execute the murderer in you. In other words, we must have a commitment to deal a deathblow to attitudes that depreciate human dignity and worth. We must deal a deathblow to attitudes and habit patterns that feed those attitudes.
Obviously we need to repent. That is the place to start. Humility and repentance will always deal a deathblow to arrogance and pride. And arrogance and pride is really where hatred begins.
After thorough repentance, however, we must then build into our minds and hearts attitudes that encourage and build up one another. These positive attitudes need to replace the negative ones. They will build into our lives new attitudes of love and respect for life.
We are told in Romans 12:2 (NLT), "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is." Our minds must be renewed if we are to avoid murderous attitudes of heart. Those things, on which we allow our minds to dwell, will determine our attitudes of heart. If we dwell on the negative in people, their faults, mistakes, imperfections, hang-ups, even sins, we will come out with wrong attitudes of heart. But if we dwell on the positive, we may begin to see them as God sees them. In 1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV) it says, "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." Unfortunately it is hard for us to see the heart. Therefore we must choose to dwell upon the positive. That does not mean we do not see the negative. But it means we do not dwell on the negative. Rather, we dwell upon the positive.
Look at what the Lord says to us in Phillipians 4:8 (NAS): "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things." These are the things on which we are to dwell.
When we look at another person, we are to look for things that true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute. We are to try to find things of excellence and things worthy of praise. Everyone has good points. We should seek them out, and when we find them, we should choose to dwell on those things. By doing so, we will successfully execute the murderer in each of us.
Copyright © 1999 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of the copyright holder and may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice.
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