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- D.L. Moody - The Ten Commandments
"The Ten Commandments" by D.L. Moody
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The Sixth Commandment
Thou shalt not kill.
I USED TO SAY: "What is the use of taking up a law like this in an
audience where, probably, there isn't a man who ever thought of, or
ever will commit, murder?" But as one gets on in years, he sees many
a murder that is not outright killing. I need not kill a person to
be a murderer. If I get so angry that I wish a man dead, I am a
murderer in God's sight. God looks at the heart and says he that
hateth his brother is a murderer.
First, let us see what this commandment does not mean.
It does not forbid the killing of animals for food and for other
reasons. Millions of rams and lambs and turtledoves must have been
killed every year for sacrifices under the Mosaic system. Christ
Himself ate of the Passover lamb, and we are told definitely of
cases where He ate fish and provided it for His disciples and the
people to eat.
It does not forbid the killing of burglars or attackers in
self-defense. Directly after the giving of the Ten Commandments, God
laid down the ordinance that if a thief be found breaking in and be
smitten that he die, it was pardonable. Did not Christ justify this
idea of self-defense when He said: "If the goodman of the house had
known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and
would not have suffered his house to be broken up" (Mt 24:43).
It does not forbid capital punishment. God Himself set the death
penalty upon violations of each of the first seven commandments, as
well as for other crimes. God said to Noah after the deluge, "Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" (Gen 9:2);and
the reason given is just as true today as it was then--"for in the
image of God made he man."
What it does forbid is the wanton, intentional taking of human life
under wrong motives and circumstances. Man is made in God's image.
He is built for eternity. He is more than a mere animal. His life
ought therefore to be held sacred. Once taken, it can never be
restored. In heathen lands human life is no more sacred than the
life of animals; even in Christian lands there are heartless and
selfish men who hold it cheap; but God has invested it with a high
value. An infidel philosopher of the eighteenth century said: "In
the sight of God, every event is alike important; and the life of a
man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an
oyster." "Where is the crime," he asked, "of turning a few ounces of
blood out of their channel?" Such language needs no answer.
THE VALUE OF MAN
Let me give you a passage from H. L. Hastings: "A friend of mine
visited the Fiji Islands in 1844, and what do you suppose an infidel
was worth there then? You could buy a man for a musket, or if you
paid money, for seven dollars, and after you had bought him you
could feed him, starve him, work him, whip him, or eat him--they
generally ate them, unless they were so full of tobacco they could
not stomach them! But if you go there today you could not buy a man
for seven million dollars. There are no men for sale there now. What
has made the difference in the price of humanity? The twelve hundred
Christian chapels scattered over that island tell the story. The
people have learned to read that Book which says: 'Ye were not
redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,.. but with the
precious blood of Christ(1 Pe 1:18-19); and since they learned that
lesson, no man is for sale there."
Men tell me that the world is getting so much better. We talk of our
American civilization. We forget the alarming increase of crime in
our midst. It is said that there is no civilized country on the
globe where murder is so frequently committed and so seldom
punished.
SUICIDE
There is that other kind of murder that is increasing at an
appalling rate among us--suicide. There have been infidels in all
ages who have advocated it's a justifiable means of release from
trial and difficulty; yet thinking men, as far back as Aristotle,
have generally condemned it as cowardly and unjustifiable under any
conditions. No man has a right to take his own life from such
motives any more than the life of another.
It has been pointed out that the Jewish race, the people of God,
always counted length of days as a blessing. The Bible does not
mention one single instance of a good man committing suicide. In the
four thousand years of Old Testament history it records only four
suicides, and only one suicide in the New Testament. Saul, king of
Israel, and his armorbearer, Ahithophel, Zimri and Judas Iscariot
are the five cases. Look at the references in the Bible to see what
kind of men they were.
OTHER KINDS OF MURDER
But I want to speak of other classes of murderers that are very
numerous in this country, although they are not classified as
murderers. The man who is the cause of the death of another through
criminal carelessness is guilty. The man who sells diseased meat;
the saloonkeeper whose drink has maddened the brain of a criminal;
those who adulterate food; the employer who jeopardizes the lives of
employees and others by unsafe surroundings and conditions in
harmful occupations-they are all guilty of blood where life is lost
as a consequence.
When I was in England in 1892, I met a gentleman who claimed that
they were ahead of us in the respect they had for the law. "We hang
our murderers," he said, "but there isn't one out of twenty in your
country that is hung." I said, "You are greatly mistaken, for they
walk about these two countries unhung." "What do you mean?" "I will
tell you what I mean," I said; "the man that comes into my house and
runs a dagger into my heart for my money, is a prince compared with
a son that takes five years to kill me and the wife of my bosom. A
young man who comes home night after night drunk, and when his
mother remonstrates, curses her grey hairs and kills her by inches,
is the blackest kind of a murderer."
That kind of thing is going on constantly all around us. One young
man at college, an only son, whose mother wrote to him remonstrating
against his gambling and drinking habits, took the letters out of
the post-office, and when he found that they were from her, he tore
them up without reading them. She said, "I thought I would die when
I found I had lost my hold on that son."
If a boy kills his mother by his conduct, you can't call it anything
else than murder. and he is as truly guilty of breaking this sixth
commandment as if he drove a dagger to her heart. If all young men
in this country who are killing their parents and their wives by
inches, should be hung this next week, there would be a great many
funerals.
How are you treating your parents? Come, are you killing them? This
sixth commandment follows very naturally after the fifth, "Honor thy
father and dry mother." Don't put any thoughts in their pillows and
make their last days miserable. Bear in mind that the commandment
refers not only to shooting a man down in cold blood; but he is the
worst murderer who goes on, month after month, year after year,
until he has crowded the life out of a sainted mother and put a
godly father under the sod.
THE WORDS OF CHRIST
Let us look once again at the Sermon on the Mount, that men think so
much of, and see what Christ had to say: "Ye have heard that it was
said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall
kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca
[an expression of contempt], shall be in danger of the council: but
whosoever shall say, Thou fool [an expression of condemnation],
shall be in danger of hell fire (Mt 5:21-22). "Three degrees of
murderous guilt," as has been said, "all of which can be manifested
without a blow being struck: secret anger; the spiteful jeer; the
open, unrestrained outburst of violent, abusive speech."
Again, what does John say? "Whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him" (1 Jn 3:15).
Did you ever in your heart wish a man dead? That was murder. Did you
ever get so angry that you wished any one harm? Then you are guilty.
I may be addressing someone who is cultivating an unforgiving
spirit. That is the spirit of the murderer, and needs to be rooted
out of your heart.
We can only read men's acts--what they have done. God looks down
into the heart. That is the birthplace and home of the evil desires
and intentions that lead to the transgression of all God's laws.
Listen once more to the words of Jesus: "From within, out of the
heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy,pride, foolishness" (Mk 7:21-22).
May God purge our hearts of these evil things, if we are harboring
them! Ah, if many of us were weighed now, we should find
Belshazzar's doom written against us--"Tekel--wanting!''
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