Turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 4 and also to Matthew chapter 5. I want to read from both of these places tonight. We're studying from the larger catechism, the Ten Commandments. And the sixth commandment, which we begin tonight is thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit murder. And I want to read to you here, first of all, from Genesis 4. Let's listen together to God's Word. Now, the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have begotten a man-child with the help of the Lord. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part, also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, Will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. Cain told Abel his brother. It came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. And whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain so that no one finding him would slay him. Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26. Jesus is speaking. 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 says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the Supreme Court. And whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore, if you're presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you'll be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent." As the larger catechism does with each of the commandments, it tells us both what our duties are, what's required of us in a particular command, as well as telling us what sins are forbidden in the commandment. And you have this. I'm not going to read these two questions. Do you have a question? One thirty five, one thirty six. Lay those out for you. Let me summarize, though, just very quickly before we jump back into into our text tonight. The things required, the duties required in the sixth commandment. I think it's really important for us to think this way because we're prone to simply think that if we remove evil from our life, if we remove sin from our life, then everything is OK. a full understanding of the word and of the law, God also requires things. So we've said this before. It's not enough just not to be mean and not be hateful. We're also to be loving and we're to be kind. And if you take either of those in the wrong way, then you're in trouble in terms of the commands of God. There's at least seven things here, depending on how you break them down and summarize them, that are required in the sixth command. We have a commandment positively to simply preserve life. You need to preserve life everywhere you go. You need to care about life. God lays that out. It's kind of the overarching principle here. But it's interesting then to see how you are to go about doing that. And the second thing he says is you have to do it by subduing your own passions. So you've got to make sure that the things that are in the heart are the things that eventually come out of the life. So subdue passions. Don't let them run rampant temptations and wrong practices or you'll be in trouble. You are to be involved in the just defense of life. So there is a sense in which you need to be aggressive and take initiative to defend life and their Of course, a lot of different ways to do that. That doesn't always mean clobbering the guy. It, of course, could be if you come across that kind of a violent crime taking place. But when we were in the fight against abortion, for instance, there are a lot of ways that we can take up the defense of the innocent. We're involved in doing everything that we can to preserve life. Fourthly, we're to patiently bear the hand of God. It's very interesting that they put this one in here because often we need, or not often, always we need to see what unfolds in life in terms of the providence of God. And sometimes it is the things that God does that stirs us to anger. We have an example of that tonight. God, Cain was angry because of what God's response to his offering. And so, if we're not able to see the hand of God in the circumstances of our life, sooner or later we're going to be in trouble. Fifthly, the proper, or rather the sober use of, this is interesting, meat, drink, physics, sleep, labor and recreation. Do you even know what physics is? It's not physical education, that's just a word that means medicine. So, simply, be sober in your intake. And I think what they have in mind here is anything that we do in a gluttonous kind of fashion will dull the senses. And the dulling of the senses then can lead to not being able to subdue passions, for instance. Right? Because our defenses get broken down. It's not just alcohol that might do that, but other things can do that as well. So that's the idea that they're getting at there. Six, what I simply jotted down here is the fruit of the spirit were to be cultivating charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness, peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior. So we need to be cultivating those kind of things deep in our hearts. And then seventh, it speaks of forbearance, readiness to be reconciled. So we need a forgiving spirit. We don't hold on to grudges, but part of keeping this commandment, the duty required, is that we really are quick to want to forgive. We're quick to want to make things right. Whether we've initiated the sin or someone sinned against us, we are reconcilers, we're peacemakers. So those are things required of you. Things forbidden. The taking of life. This is question 136. You obviously can't take life. It gives some exceptions. Public justice. God's given the sword to the state. A lawful war, again, given to sovereign nations, and necessary defense. You can defend your own life. So those would be exceptions. Other than that, no taking of life. It's a prohibition against lawful and necessary, withholding lawful and necessary means of life. And I think there's a lot of medical ethics questions that come into bear here. Of course, we've had some big cases of that, been prominent in the news. Whenever we're working through these things and they'll touch your life in various ways with loved ones that are going through great things. One of the things that the catechism helps us see here is don't withhold the necessary basic things of life. Don't withhold food and water and that type of thing. Now, there's a lot of room for discussion because there's so much technology out there that this is not simply saying that every single medical advancement and technology that is available, you must employ. This is not saying that at all, but it is saying, you know, you don't do things that will take that are necessary to keep life, food and water and those kinds of things. You don't withhold those because in essence, then you'd be taking you'd be responsible for taking that life away. Thirdly, forbidden in this commandment are issues of the heart. So this is kind of the opposite of the fruit of the spirit. If you're cultivating an angry heart, If you're cultivating envy, hatred, desires for revenge, if you're not dealing with your anger, excessive passions, these things are all going to lead to big trouble. And so these are forbidden. And then finally, a combative spirit. That is, if you're a person that's simply looking for a fight, and if the thing that energizes you in life is conflict, And if you're simply looking for the next battle that you can fight, this commandment has something to say to you. We're not to be that kind of person. We're to be the kind of people that seek peace. Insofar as possible that you be at peace with all men. Not always possible, but insofar as depends upon you, you be at peace with all men. So that's just a little summary and overview of some of the things that the Catechism has to say about that. Now, obviously, as Jesus connected this to the commandment, he spoke about anger. Not all anger in and of itself is sin. Ephesians 4, 26 says, be angry and yet do not sin. That's a very interesting wording there. It almost gives permission to be angry. I think it does. In certain situations, we can be angry. There are examples of the anger of God and Christ in the temple and that type of thing. But with just a few exceptions, most of the places scriptures address the issue of anger. It's dealing with it in a way that gives us great warning. And it tells us the dangers of anger and it weighs in saying anger can be one of the greatest problems that can be found in the heart of man. And so we see some of that here. We wonder sometimes, well, where is that line? When can anger be okay? And when is anger sinful? Well, we have an example here in Genesis chapter four of anger becoming sinful. When anger is provoked by righteousness, of course, then it's always sinful. There are no exceptions to that. If something righteous happens and you don't like it and it stirs you up in anger, then that's a sinful kind of anger. We should love righteousness, hate lawlessness. That's kind of the theme for the day. And you may think, well, I can't imagine that I would ever hate or get angry over something that was righteous. Well, oh yeah. When was the last time somebody came to you as a brother or sister in Christ and wanted to talk to you about something they saw in your life, a sin that they saw or the way you treated somebody or something you said, and you got really defensive? And he got a little angry about that. Now, who is this person to talk to me about that? They've got all kinds of problems of their own, and anger begins to well up when their motivation was to love you, and to help you, and to carry out their biblical responsibilities. We're very prone. We're very prone to this kind of thing. Maybe you've seen the application that someone else has to the Word of God. And they're simply taking something in the word and they're applying it to their life. And you think that you don't apply the word that way. You don't make that particular application. You get a little irritated, you get a little angry that somebody would go to that extreme or would be that radical. It's not that uncommon. to see brothers get angry with one another over issues of simply applying the Word of God. So these things do happen. They do touch our lives. And we need to recognize when we get angry about things that are flowing out of righteousness, that our anger is not right. Our anger is also sinful when it's simply very self-centered. I think a lot of anger comes about simply because we think that some right that we have, either a real right or a perceived right, has been violated. And we don't like that. So selfishness can be a great motivation in this. And you think about if you're married, you're married. This kind of thing probably happens in your marriage relationship with your spouse. Or if you're a child and you're struggling with anger toward your parents, these things are very real. Maybe somebody's changing your plans and it just irritates you. I confess, I get that way. I like to know the plan, you know, I get it laid out and then the plan gets changed. And I just find myself getting irritated by that. And I realize, why am I irritated? Well, it's simply because that's not how I was planning on doing it. And so I have to stop and try and preach to myself and work on that. But we get disappointed. Something doesn't go the way we anticipated it would. We have expectations and our expectations get dashed and we get angry. We expect someone to act in a certain way. We expect our child to do something. Maybe we didn't even tell them. You know, and often expectations are not based in any kind of instruction or any kind of command or any kind of arrangement. We just create expectations and then they're not met. And we get angry by that. Someone does something to you that you don't like. They're maybe unkind to you and you think, well, I have the right to be treated in a certain way. Or they ask you to do something. You know, I'm not your slave. And we're angry. And children can lash out at their parents because their parents are asking them to do something. It's selfishness that motivates a lot of our anger. Proverbs 19, 11 says, a man's discretion makes him slow to anger. So we need to, we need to perceive these things. We need to search our hearts and ask the Lord to search our hearts and realize how often we get in trouble. Proverbs 14, 29 says he was slow to anger, has great understanding. And so often we get angry before we try and understand. And what God says is, listen, you slow down. Don't get angry right away. Seek to find understanding and understanding will come to you. Third thing that can make anger sinful is simply responding, as the catechism talks about, with great passion. In other words, when our emotions get out of control and we're not able to control what we do or what we say. Read Proverbs 29. There's a lot of verses in there that seem to get at that very kind of thing. An angry man stirs up strife, it says. So you know your anger is sinful when you lose control of what you say and you find yourself saying things that you regret. Or when you're doing things that you regret and you're not able to really control your passion. So can you be angry and not sin? Yes. But is your anger prone to sinfulness? Yes. And sometimes the anger itself is its own sin and is not motivated by anything that ought to make you angry. So when this happens, we need to be careful. There are a lot of dangers that come into life and into the world when we're not controlling our anger. Of course, what Jesus was saying is, listen, this is where the violation of the most obvious part of the sixth commandment comes from. Why would anyone murder another person? because of anger. It finds its germination in our hearts in that way. But when we get angry, the first thing that happens is we damage our own life. You see that here in Genesis chapter 4. What happened when Cain got angry? Verse 5, For Cain in his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. So he got angry, and then his face fell, his emotions fell, his being sunk low because of his anger. Guilt and bitterness and disappointment, things that can foul our soul and affect our life. These are things that were coming into Cain's life. And he was so disappointed and angry with God, and his offering was rejected, that this anger came up and it brought great inner turmoil. And of course, anger is a passionate emotion. No matter what causes it, it is intense. And it will bring great inner turmoil. And if it's not controlled, it will lead to great harm. Hebrews says, Pursue peace with all men. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled. So what happens when we don't deal with anger? You don't deal with anger and bitterness is one of the first results. You're not going to be able to remain angry for a long period of time without it eroding your soul. Even a righteous anger, if it's not dealt with before God, will begin to lead to some kind of bitterness. Also, when we have anger, the wrong kind of anger can damage our relationship with other people. And that's, of course, what the end of that Hebrews passage says, and by it, many are defiled. When you're around and keep company with bitter people, there's always a fallout relationally. Other people are damaged by that. Of course, again, in Genesis 4, what do we find? Well, Cain is angry, and the result of that is he gets around Cain and he kills Cain. So the outcome of that is the ultimate kind of damage in a relationship. Again, that Proverbs 29, 22 passage I quote, it says, an angry man stirs up strife. That's just what anger does. It stirs up strife among other people. There's a spillover effect. So an angry person just finds themselves in conflict with other people because of things that they say and things that they do and things that they don't do. So they're not doing the things required in the sixth commandment, the fruit of the Spirit. But they are doing things that are forbidden in the sixth commandment. Proverbs 30 verse 33 says the churning of milk produces butter, the pressing of the nose brings forth blood. So the churning of anger produces strife. And even, you know, you just catch how graphic this is, the churning of anger. And that's descriptive. This is what anger does. It just churns, it gnaws, it eats away at a person's life. And so the inevitability is that other relationships are going to be damaged because we We begin to show resentment, we begin to say things that we shouldn't say and words begin to hurt and sometimes physical actions aggravate it even more. Well, not only can it bring harm to us and bring harm to others, it can also bring damage in our relationship with God. And that's that's part of what Jesus was was getting at here in Matthew, chapter five, when he actually lays out an explanation. of this. He goes on and he says, if you're presenting your offering at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering. So this anger that causes a break in relationships can just be disruptive to worship. It can cause us to have to get up. And I mean, there's instruction here. There's a positive side to this. If you know it's there, Go take care of it. Go deal with it. This is a way to prepare for worship. But in the context here, it's interruptive to worship. Get up. Leave worship, because you're not going to be able to worship God the way you ought to worship God if you've got this kind of unresolved anger deep in your heart. So these are really, really important subjects for us to recognize. We've got to learn then how to deal with our anger. And one of the things that we have to do is part of what we're praying about tonight. It was striking to me how many of the requests that we prayed for just have to do with the fallenness of the world that we live in. And praying for persecuted Christians, praying for a lot of issues that simply come to us in the health arena because it's a sinful world that we live in. How do we keep from getting angry about all of the things that we see in the world, all the things that are not right in the world? It's not going to happen if we don't understand something of how God has chosen to bring glory to himself through a fallen world. I was listening to a message this week while I was out jogging, and John Piper was talking about why. He was trying to answer the question, why doesn't God simply destroy Satan today? Why doesn't he just throw him into the lake of fire? He's going to do it in the future. Why wait? Why not just bring it to an end? Why not bring the suffering to a conclusion right now? Because God obviously could do that. So why doesn't he do it? And the conclusion that he brought forth was simply because it doesn't bring God the highest glory. It would bring Him glory, to be sure. But God knows that the highest glory, the greatest glory, is going to come through God continuing to demonstrate His power, and His grace, and His mercy, and His strength, and His Word, and His Spirit to the people of God. God glorifies Himself through your suffering. And so when we begin to understand that, It becomes a great governor to anger, whether our anger would be aimed at God or whether it would be aimed at some injustice or whether it would be aimed at some irritation. We begin to see that God wants to bring glory through the pain that we bring in the world. So part of dealing with this is recognizing there's nothing that happens to you that is outside of the hand of God. There's nothing that happens. God controls every little detail. Everything that happens in your life comes about because of God's plan. And it all is leading to His greatest glory. And so we have to come to that conviction. And we have to believe that to be true. And once we begin to believe that's true, then what happens is we can begin to apply the commands of the Scripture that come to bear on this kind of thing. It's interesting, you know, that God says to Cain, you can control this. You see, that's the wording that he uses there. Why are you angry? Why does your countenance fall? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it. This is what he tells Cain. You master your anger. And so you can master your anger. And how many people say, well, I can't help it. Well, yes, you can help it. But you can't help it by yourself. And you can't help it simply by willing yourself to master it. You help it as you begin to see the connection of a sovereign God in your life. And as you begin to understand His plan for you, and His glory, and what He wants to bring in and through you, and how He wants to express His character in the middle of your trouble. And when you begin to see that, then you can master it. And you can do well. And when you do well, Your countenance will be lifted up. Your anger will disappear. And so these are things that we have to recognize. But it begins not with us. It begins with God. And when we begin with us instead of God, we never get there. We never master it. Because we have to bring ourselves under him. And when we do that, then things like developing this forgiving spirit that we spoke about will be a lot easier. Sometimes we read these passages, you know, love covers a multitude of sins and we we say to one another, well, sometimes you just need to let it go. Just let love cover it. And you ever find yourself saying, well, I wish I could, but I can't. Well, it's because we often begin with ourselves, we don't begin with God, we don't begin with the cross, we don't begin by remembering how much we've been forgiven by Jesus. And therefore, see, Paul's commands were always, therefore, you can forgive because look what God's done for you in Christ. So we have to start there. And if we can't let our love simply cover it, then God gives us all the instruction we need. Don't let the sun go down in your anger. Go and be reconciled to your brother. You go talk. Go work it out. Look at each other in the eye. Work through your difficulties. We need to be careful about using the Internet for this kind of thing. God wants us to be in community and communion. And we've said often the Internet can be a dangerous tool. It can be helpful. But you can't communicate Spirit. You can't communicate the intent of words on the Internet. It's so easy to misread. Something that maybe intended to be a little bit funny or sarcastic, that always come through. So we get together, see, and we say, hey, we need to talk. We need to work this out. And then if it's not possible, the other person doesn't get it and they're not repentant, they're not sorry. Just remember that there's a difference between pardon and forgiveness. You don't pardon someone's sin. Only God can pardon. Only God can dismiss a sin. Only God can cover a sin by His grace and through the work of Christ. So you don't have to pardon sin. God will deal with that. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. But you can forgive. You can give it up to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm not going to hold this against this person because I know what it will do to me. And I'm going to trust You to deal with that person according to Your justice. and according to your plan. So these are some things about worship. It's about love. It's about how we treat one another. It's about the body of Christ. It's about relationships in the world. It's about our witness and our testimony to others. It's about how we get along and build one another up in our faith. This is what God wants of us. This is at the heart of the sixth commandment. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we need help with this.