Anger is Murder

1. 0:00The Lord’s Day 40 Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 40 What is God's will for you in the Sixth Commandment?
2. 0:16I am not to belittle, hate, insult, or kill my neighbor.
3. 0:20not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by actual deeds.
4. 0:27I am not to be party to this and others, rather I am to put away all desire for revenge.
5. 0:34I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either.
6. 0:38Prevention of murder is also why government is armed with the sword.
7. 0:43Does this commandment refer only to murder?
8. 0:46By forbidding murder, God teaches us that He hates the root of murder: envy, hatred, anger, vengefulness.
9. 0:54In God's sight all such are disguised forms of murder.
10. 1:00Is it enough then that we do not murder our neighbor in any such way?
11. 1:04No.
12. 1:05By condemning envy, hatred, and anger, God wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly toward them, to protect them from harm,
13. 1:20as much as we can and to do good even to our enemies.
14. 1:25Because man is made in the image of God, those who take man's life forfeit their own.
15. 1:34If man were an animal or a bug, it wouldn't matter that man is murdered, but because he's made in the image of God, his life has dignity and value.
16. 1:45And God says, "To assault man's life is to assault God himself."
17. 1:50Now we might think that that's all that God condemns, but Jesus is more exacting in his sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5.
18. 1:59tells us that he has come to do away with Pharisaical religion. The Pharisees were the masters of looking good on the outside and having a kind of godly appearance but having hatred in their
19. 2:14heart not only against God but against their fellow man. It was not an atypical attitude that Jews had to say, "Okay, sure, I won't murder. That's obvious. I won't
20. 2:26plunge a knife into the chest of my neighbor. I get it." But I think God gives us permission to hate other people. It's okay to belittle or to insult others. And God says that he doesn't just
21. 2:39look at the actions and the outward behavior of people. He looks at our heart.
22. 2:45He looks at the attitudes that are in us that lead to murder. In our day we're oftentimes given permission by the world around us and by society to hate others. And God says we must be very
23. 2:59careful to let hatred into our hearts. Those who hate, those who envy, those who are jealous, those who live in strife are not manifesting the fruit of the
24. 3:12Spirit but rather the works of the flesh. And those who do so are not heirs of the kingdom of heaven. God tells us very clearly
25. 3:19in his word in 1 John 3:15, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."
26. 3:30Before God, if you hate your brother, you are as guilty as a serial killer. A person who is consumed by hatred and by a twisted desire against their neighbor, does not know God and has completely lost touch
27. 3:47with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
28. 3:49By the end of this Lord’s Day, we have not just only considered what God condemns, but what's the antidote?
29. 3:57And we're given that in Heidelberg 107.
30. 3:59God doesn't just condemn the actions of murder and the attitudes that lead to it.
31. 4:06He also commands you to biblical love.
32. 4:09The biblical love of your neighbor and its lawful expressions.
33. 4:13God calls us to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, friendly, and faithful.
34. 4:19and to protect our neighbor and even to love our enemies.
35. 4:25In God, we find the example of how this is all to be done.
36. 4:31God routinely calls us in the New Testament to follow him, to be imitators of God as beloved God.
37. 4:39children and to walk in love, to forgive one another even as He in Christ has forgiven us.
38. 4:47In the Old Testament God also constantly calls His people to do good to His enemies. This is not by any stretch only a New Testament idea. Some people think that in the Old Testament
39. 4:59God allowed his people to hate but in the New Testament we are now called to love our enemies and nothing could be further from the truth we find this in
40. 5:09Exodus 23 in Proverbs 25 and then of course in the New Testament God amplifies these commands because is it not the case that salvation is God loving his enemies while we were still enemies while we were far from God
41. 5:25while we hated God while we were rebellious against Christ Christ came and laid down his life for us who were his enemies to make us now his friends and his people so if you
42. 5:39If you love only those who love you, the Bible says, "Congratulations, you have adopted the tribalistic ethic of the world."
43. 5:46In Bible times and in the time of Christ, it was very common for the Jew to love only the Jew and to hate Gentiles.
44. 5:54For the Roman citizen to love only other Roman citizens and to hate non-citizens.
45. 5:59But in Christ we're given a better ethic a universal ethic that encompasses not only those who would do well to us But encompasses even those who would malign us those who would be considered our enemy
46. 6:13And so what does this look like we are called to be well disposed to others in love and to be those who are beneficent, not just benevolent, those who do good to
47. 6:25others, those who are patient, who bear up offenses, who seek to reconcile warring brothers. We are called to be gentle and not harsh or brash, merciful, that is ready to forgive
48. 6:39others when they offend us and ready to help them when they are in need. And in doing so we're simply following the example with the power of our Savior
49. 6:50himself who loved us while we were enemies and gave his life up for us that we would know God and be reconciled to God.
50. 6:59Thank you.

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