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Two weeks ago we looked at the
fifth commandment of Moses, honor thy father and mother. Last week
we looked at the sixth commandment of Moses, thou shall not kill. We didn't get very far in that
particular study as we were trying to relate to our day and age
with the questioning of capital punishment, abortion, whether
we should or should not pull life-supporting equipment, euthanasia,
some of those questions, capital punishment, some of those questions,
what the Bible says, what God says is changing over time. And the question is, is just,
Lord, what do you have to say on the matter? And where would
you have us be thinking? Where would you have us be acting?
And just one quick passage, let's go to Romans 1, Romans 1. Just take a couple minutes to
review last week and then we'll move on. This topic, I was surprised,
actually generated quite a few questions and comments from you,
so I think I'm heading in the right direction, trying to feed
some of your questions, answer them. In Romans 1, verse 28,
It says, and even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetous, maliciousness, full of envy,
murder. And there's a list of sins there.
Let's go down to verse 32. It says, who knowing the judgment
of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. So here is a statement by God. He says, one of my sins is murder.
And if you commit such this along with some of these other sins,
these are sins that are worthy of death. And on the surface,
that seems like a contradiction. But last week when we looked
at scripture, we see that when God uses the word kill and he
uses the word murder, He's talking, you almost have to look at it
from the point of innocent blood and guilty blood. If I was in
self-defense, that certainly would be not murder, but it would
be killing. But if I was in an act of war,
that certainly would be killing, but it wouldn't be murder. So
it turns out murder is killing, but not all killing is murder.
And when you go to scripture and you look at some of these
Old Testament passages, like Numbers 35, in Deuteronomy 21,
God gave a whole list of scenarios. If we were to break out in a
fight and it was preplanned and I came mad, that would be one
thing. But if I came and it was spontaneous,
that would be another. If I reached down and picked
up a rock, that would be another case or a weapon. If I was accidental
death, if I had an ox that gored someone, that would be one thing.
If it was an ox that I knew was ornery and gored someone, that
would be a completely another. And all this stuff was covered
by God's word. And as we go through scripture, it turns out that
God actually looks at the heart. And basically that was very consistent
with Jesus taught in Matthew 25. If you're angry, without
a cause, you're guilty of murder even though you haven't had opportunity.
And that's kind of where we left off last week. We covered that
and we covered, how God looks at the difference
between killing and murder, and that's about as far as we got.
Now, some of you have had some questions, and I'm going to try
to answer some of those questions about what's murder and what's
not. And one of the subjects I'd like to probably tackle first
is the case of suicide. I don't know if you've ever heard
a message on suicide or not, but God has a lot to say about
it. There's a lot of folks in Scripture
that did kill themselves. There's also several other folks
that tried to kill themselves. and there's a whole bunch of
folks that had a death wish. Now you're probably thinking,
okay, what does that have to do with me? Well, I don't know about you, but it
has touched my life. I have a biological grandfather that took
his life when my mom was only 13 years old. and I've heard
the stories and evidently it was depression. Deborah has an
uncle that came back from Vietnam that was very mentally troubled
and ended up taking his life. And I can tell you last year
about this time, I was in the hospital with a young lady that
tried to take her life. So it does happen to be touching
different families and I think all of you look back and you
look far enough in your families, you probably know of a case or
two where suicide has been an issue. If you go to public high
school, my guess is you don't have to look too far and you
will see, you certainly read about them, about bullying and
different cases in the newspapers of students who get to a point
and take their life. So what I'd like to do is I'd
like to look at the case of suicide from what God does have to say,
and there are a cures, and just how should we go? How should
we proceed? Let's say it's not us, and let's suppose we are
into a place where we're really, really depressed, even though
we might not be depressed about thinking about taking our lives,
this same instruction still will apply to us to how to kick yourself
out of that depression sometimes, okay? So as you go through scripture,
I'm actually going to look at some of these cases that you're
probably not familiar with. Now, when we think of suicide,
we think of the Bible. I think most everybody will come
to mind, they'll say, aha, Judas. Judas tried to take his life.
And he did take his life, and he was successful, and that seemed
to be guilt-driven. Well, we can think of the time
when the apostles were in jail, and there was an earthquake,
and they escaped, and the jailer wanted to run himself through,
and I think it was Paul that yelled out, stop, don't do it!
And they had a conversation, and he didn't take his life.
I think we're familiar with those cases, but let's go to a couple
cases where maybe you're not so familiar. The first one is
a man named Ahithophel. Let's go to 2 Samuel 16 and verse
20. we're looking at the very serious
subject of suicide as it relates to thou shall not kill. And don't
get me wrong when I'm talking about it, when God says thou shall not
kill, he does say thou shall not kill and that includes yourself. We do know folks that are to
the point where they're very depressed and we do feel sorry
for them, but it's still wrong, it's still a sin. Now let me
stay this out of the shoe. I've heard some people say that
suicide is an unpardonable sin. I don't see that in scripture.
I think Jesus' blood is strong enough to cover any sin and this
is definitely one of them, okay? But nevertheless, we may run
into people, whether they be family or distant relatives or
coworkers or maybe even a student that you don't know that well.
I do remember a student that took his life when I was in high
school. I remember meeting him in 10th grade. He dropped out,
and I heard somewhere around 11th or 12th grade he took his
life. So I never stepped up to him. I didn't have the strength.
I didn't have the knowledge. I wouldn't have known what to
say. Maybe this will be the encouragement or not. Okay, let's go to 2 Samuel,
and we want to go to 16 and verse 20. 2 Samuel 16 and 20. Now this
was a man named Ahithophel, And I guess the best way to say it,
this was a man that was just, the reason behind it wasn't depression,
it was pride. It was pride. Now the actual
act takes in 1723, but I want to kind of set the stage of,
suicidal thought, 99.9% of the time, doesn't happen just overnight. You just wake up in the morning
and say, hey, I'm gonna do this. Usually it's a process of a slow period
of time, where you get to this point. So what I'm trying to
do is build a case of what this man that we probably don't know
too much about, or if we had a Bible conversation, probably
he'd be one of the last guys you'd bring up. We just don't
talk about this guy that often. But let's kind of lay the groundwork
of how this guy got to a point where he wanted to hang himself.
2 Samuel 16 and verse 20, it says, then said Absalom to Ahithophel,
give counsel among you what we shall do. So it turns out we
find out who he was. Remember Absalom? Absalom was
that rascal king that tried to take the throne away from David.
And he set himself up with some counselors. And this man named
Ahithophel was one of his counselors. And he turns and he says, Ahithophel,
David's over here. I want to kill him. And what's
the best way to do it? And he goes to Ahithophel. And
he says, Ahithophel, how should I do it? And the next four or
five verses, basically, he gives a game plan. We come down to
chapter 17 and verse 3, actually verse 4, 2 Samuel 17 and verse
4, and the saying, pleased Absalom well and all the elders of Israel. So Ahithophel was a counselor.
He was getting answer for counsel. He gave his advice. Absalom,
the king that was trying to take over, says, good, I like it.
And as long as his counsel was being paid attention to, he was
happy. But we come forward and let's
go all the way to chapter 17 and verse 23. And it says, And
when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he
saddled his ass, and arose, and got him home to his house, to
his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself,
and died, and was buried in the sepulcher of his father. In other
words, there was a counseling disagreement. Let's suppose I
was pastoring a church, and we had two or three deacons, and
I said, what do you think we should do in this? And one deacon
said this advice, one deacon said that advice, another deacon
said this advice, and I said, I'm going this way. And the one
that I said, no, I don't think I want to go that way, He got
mad and took off and went and killed himself. Do you understand
how full of a person he is? How much pride a person has?
He said, they didn't take my counsel. That was the reason
behind it. It was pride. It was pride that
got him to a place. You're thinking, boy, oh boy. I give my advice all the time.
No one ever listens to me. I preach all the time. People,
you know, they come to me for advice and they don't even listen
to it. Just think of every time that someone ignored my advice,
I wouldn't have thought like that. How is that right to us? My friends,
the Lord would have us tell the things of Christ. And to do it
in this world, you're gonna get a lot of rejection. People are
gonna say, no way. Oh, you're just a preacher. You're
only going by the Bible. we're gonna get rejected a lot. We need to get ourselves to a
point that when we give advice, even if it's my own wife, or
even if it's my own sons, my sons are getting to the point
where they don't always take my advice. Yeah, and I get discouraged,
and I know some of the pitfalls they'll have one and two or three
years down the road, but should I get so self-consumed, this
suicide was a man that was so involved and so caught up in
himself. But you know what? There's signals.
There's little trigger points that say, listen, this brother's
in trouble, okay? Now let's just put the FFL on
hold for a second and let's go look at one more case, okay?
Let's look at a man named Zimri. Let's go to 1 Kings 16. 1 Kings
16. Now I'm just putting out a couple
of case studies for you, a couple of men, what's recorded in scripture,
and then we'll make some summaries here in a second. 1 Kings 16
and verse eight. I hear the Bible or two flipping,
I'll wait till you get there. 1 Kings 16 and verse eight. In the 26th
year of Asa, King of Judah began Elah, the
son of Beahashah, to reign over Israel, Terzah, two years. Okay, now remember back at this
point in time, Israel was a split kingdom. There was Judah over
here, and they had a king, and that king was Asa, and Israel
was a king, and it was this fellow named Elah, and he was king.
Israel was a split nation, and each nation, or each half of
the nation had a different king, okay? And his servant, Zimri, captain
of half his chariots, conspired against him as he was in Tirzah,
drinking himself drunk in the house of Arzah, steward of his
house in Tirzah. And Zimri went in and smote him
and killed him in the 27th year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned
in his stead." I guess the best way to put this is this guy was
a ladder climber, and he went to an extreme to get the king's
spot. He waited to a point when the
king was drinking, he conspired against him, he killed the king,
and he took over his office. He was an advisor of sorts. He
was kind of one of his generals. Okay? Let's skip down here now
to verse 11. And it came to pass when he began
to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all
the house of Baal-shah, and left him not one epistle against the
wall, Neither of his kin's folks nor his friends. Now that's a
crude way of saying all the male heirs, okay? So what happened
was Zimron, not only did he kill the king, he looked around and
he got all his offspring to make sure none of those people would
sit in the throne. And he killed them all. Wow, this Zimron sounds
like a pretty powerful, power-hungry guy, doesn't he? All right, let's
skip down to where he kills himself and let's figure out why. Chapter
16 and verse 16. And the people that were encamped
heard say, Zimri hath conspired, and hath also slain the king,
wherefore all Israel made Amri, the captain of the host, king
over Israel, the day in the camp. And Omri went up from Gibethon,
and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. And it
came to pass when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went
into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house
over him with fire, and died." Here's another guy that committed
suicide, and here's a guy that wanted to be king. He killed
the king in all his errors. He sat on the throne. The people
says, uh-uh, we don't want you to be king. They picked the other
leader and they came up and surrounded him and he went into a house
and lit it on fire and he stayed in there and he consumed himself. Pretty depressing stuff. But
how does it get to a point where a guy named Zimri gets to a point
where he actually kills himself? Sounds like he was pretty full
of himself too. Well, if I can't be king and they're surrounding
me, my end is pretty much doom. He says, I'm going to beat him
to the punch and I'm going to kill myself. Hmm. Well, the people
I know, classmates didn't want to be king and it wasn't that
necessary. Counsel wasn't done. They were being bullied or they
were depressed. Well, let's look at one more.
Let's look at a man named Samson. Samson. Let's go to the book
of Judges. Judges 14. Now the suicidal act happens
in 16 but we want to lay some groundwork here. We're looking
at some of the folks in the Bible who actually killed themselves
and how did this happen? Chapter 14, Judges 14 and verse
1. This is kind of a long history. I'm going to go through it pretty
quick. Samson. Let's start off here
in chapter 14, verse 1. And Samson went down to Timnath
and saw a woman of Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I have
seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
Now, therefore, get her for me to wife. Then his father and
his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the
daughters of thy brethren, or among all thy people, that thou
goest to make a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said
unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well."
It turns out that as we go through this man's life, we find out
that Samson had a woman problem. He had a lust problem. Let's
go to chapter 16 in verse 1. 16 in verse 1. Then Samson went to Gaza and
saw there an harlot and went in unto her. Chapter 16 in verse
4. And it came to pass afterward
that he loved a woman in the valley of Soret whose name was
Delilah. What happened was that Samson
had a sin problem. He had a love problem. He had
a lust problem. And all during this time, what did he do to
the godly counsel? He ignored it. He isolated himself
from it. My friends, not only is it true
of people that are getting to a point where they might want
to kill themselves, it's also true of a person that's starting
to get depression. How many times is a person, you
look at a person, whether it be a friend or maybe even a spouse
or a child that was just really depressed, and you talk to them
and you said, you gave them some advice. Usually
you get the stiff arm right in the middle of the forehead, don't
you? Isn't that right? And then just the opposite, instead
of getting involved in people, usually that depressed person
does the opposite and isolates themselves. That's what we're
going to find out in most of these cases. People would not
only ignore the counsel, but they would start isolating themselves.
Remember King Saul? King Saul fell on his own sword. He tried to kill himself. How
many times did his son Jonathan said, Dad, you're wrong. He got
mad at his son. He isolated himself. All the
goodly, all the godly counselors, he pushed away. Just let me be. So when we look at this and we
look at this man named Samson, yeah, he had sin and the sins
were getting wider and wider and wider. He was given counsel,
but he ignored them, give him the old stiff arm. He pushed
himself away and he started isolating himself. The exact opposite thing
we should be doing when we're depressed. Let's go to chapter 16 now. I'm skipping over a lot of the
detail here. 16 in verse 25. And it came to pass, well, I'm
assuming you know the story of Samson. Let me kind of paraphrase
it for you. Samson goes to this Delilah and
she wore him down. She said, tell me where your
strength comes from. He spun a lie. The Philistines
descended on him, and he whipped him. Delilah comes again. Tell me where your strength comes
from. He tells another story. Philistines descend on him, and
Samson whipped him. The third time, she's crying
the big crocodile tears. Oh, you don't love me. That's when he needed a buddy.
He needed a buddy with a two-by-four, clunk him upside the head. You
don't love her. She tried to kill you twice. And finally, he said, it comes
from my hair. So they sleep, and they cut his
hair off. And then the Philistines just descend on him. They poke
his eyes out. They put him in a dungeon. Terrible,
terrible outcome. And there he is in this dungeon.
Boy, I'd be depressed, too. Can't see. Used to be a mighty
judge, don't have any strength back. Women that you love spurned
you. That'd be a pretty depressing
place, huh? But notice what he says, verse 25. And it came to
pass, when the hearts were married, this is all the Philistines,
they were having a great big party, that they call, that they said,
call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called
for Samson out of the prison house, and he made them sport,
and they set him between the pillars. And Samson, here he
is between the pillars. And while he was in dungeon,
it turned out his hair grew back. And some of the strength returned.
And there he is with his hands on the pillars. And he prays
this prayer up here in verse 28. Now my friends, this is a
very ungodly prayer. You know, anytime you go through
scripture and you see a passage loaded with me, myself, and I,
you know the guy's on solid ground. Look at this prayer. This is
not for God's glory. This is to revenge me. Look at
the words. And Samson called unto the Lord,
and said, O Lord God, remember me. I pray thee, and strengthen
me. I pray thee, only this once,
O God, and I may be once avenged of the Philistines for my two
eyes. This is a prayer of revenge,
and yes, Samson pushes the things down. He dies, and a lot of Philistines
die with him. Now, I want to reason with you.
I know of a couple of other blind leaders that led Israel for a
long time. One was Isaac. I think it was
for 15 years, he was a patriarch and led, unable to see. There
was a prophet named Eli that also could not see and led for
a while. Simply because you don't have
eyes doesn't mean God's done with you. And he says, they took
out my eyes, I want to kill myself. How about the prayer, Lord, what
would you have me to do in your state? Now, as I go through this
and I look at all the men in the Bible that killed themselves,
Saul and Judas, the Philippian jailer, This is what I come up. I find
men that isolated themselves from other saints. I find men
that were far from God. I find men that ignored good
counsel. I find men that thought everything
depended on them. Did you ever get to a point where
you thought everything depends on you? I guarantee you're gonna
be depressed. Now, sometimes they lacked a
basic need. One of the guys that was suicidal,
well, let's go look at a couple of men that were suicidal. Here's
a couple of guys that were suicidal that you probably don't think
of. First guy was Moses, Moses. Let's read about Moses. Let's
go to Numbers 11 and verse 10. Numbers 11 and verse 10. Now,
we just read about three men that took their own lives. Now,
I'm going to tell you about five men that thought about it. They
had a death wish. But they didn't do it. They didn't
try. And one of the reasons they didn't
try is, you know what? They were communicating with
God. When you're getting to that depressed state, that's a good
person to talk to. They were reaching out and talking
to God, okay? But he sure wanted to. Numbers
11 and verse 10. Numbers 11 and verse 10. Moses. Wait, Moses in the hall of faith. There's about eight or nine verses
in Hebrews 11 written about Moses. And he had a death wish. Yeah,
let's read it. But there was a difference here. Notice what
the difference is. Then Moses heard the people weep
throughout their families. Numbers 11 and verse 10. Then
Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in
the door of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled
greatly. Moses also was displeased. And
Moses said unto the Lord, wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? And wherefore have I not found
favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this
people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them, that thou
shouldest say unto me, carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing
father beareth the suckling child unto the land which thou swearest
unto thy fathers? Now, what does this speech sound
like so far? Sounds like a poor me speech, right? You've given
me a job to do and it's too hard. Hmm. Sounds like he thinks everything
depends on him, doesn't it? Is anything too hard for the
Lord? If the Lord's helping him, do you think he can get it done?
He kind of forgot that, didn't he? Let's go. Whence should I
have flesh to give unto all these people? For they weep unto me,
saying, give us flesh that we may eat. I am not able to bear
all the people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if
thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand,
if I have found favor in thy sight, and let me not see my
wretchedness. Moses said, God, I can't do it. Kill me. It's too heavy. I didn't
ask for these people, but I got them. They're complaining. I'm
tired of it. Take me out. What did Moses do? Well, the good thing is, compared
to those other men, he was talking to God. That's a good place to
go. That's one thing he was doing. He was talking to God. He said,
Lord, I'm in a bad fix. Guess what God did? If you read
the rest of the passage, you know what God did? He gave him
about 70 helpers, and then he said, get to work, buddy. Doesn't
sound like the response you expected, right? Expected to get a little
bit of coddling? Oh, that's all right, Moses.
Yeah, he did put a little bit on you too much. Okay, here's
some helpers, now get to work. You know, whenever you're depressed,
one of the best things to do is get to work. and get to work
helping somebody else. That's the number one cure. Okay?
Let's go read of another man that felt the same way, a man
named Elijah. Let's go to 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 19 verse
4 through 8. Now, here's a man, he's different
from the first men we read, the ones that actually took their
lives or tried to take their lives. He's kinda like Moses, he wanted
to die, but before he got to that point, he reached out and
he says, God, we need to talk. I'm down, I wanna be dead. 1
Kings 19 and verse four, but he himself went a day's journey
into the wilderness and came and sat down on a juniper tree,
and he requested for himself that he might die. He said, Lord,
just take me out. and said, It is enough now, O
Lord. Take away my father, for I am
not better than my father's. And as he lay and slept under
a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him and said
unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there
was a cake. bacon on the colts, and a cruise
of water at his head, and he did eat and drink, and laid him
down again. And the angel of the Lord came
again a second time, and touched him, and said, Arise, eat, because
the journey is too great for thee." Verse 8, And he arose
and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of the meat forty
days and forty nights unto the Horeb, the mount of God. Elijah was in a tough spot, but
he had a physical problem. You know what his problem was?
He was food deprivation and sleep deprivation. He didn't have enough
food and nutrition, and he didn't have enough sleep. And he got
himself to a place where he was so worn down and so physically
frazzled, he was beside himself, and he reached out to God, and
he says, God, take me out. So what did God do? God fed him. He gave him some sleep. He fed
him again. 40 days he nurtured to him. And
guess what he said after he fed him and he gave him sleep? He
said, get to work. He said, get to work. And if
you read the rest of this passage, he put himself forth ministering. Now, I want to tell you a story
of my late wife. I shared this with Deborah. She
gave me the okay. It was okay to tell this story.
But it was actually long, my first wife was a physician's
assistant, a PA. And when going through her school,
she had to do some rotations, very similar to what a doctor
did, but she had to go through some rotations. And she was in
the middle of going through these rotations. I think she just worked
a 36-hour shift. And she called her father. Her
father told me the story. kind of giving advice to the
future son-in-law. This was actually before he got
married. She was just out of herself. Oh, Dad, I don't, you
know, just, you can imagine the scene. And you know what he did? He was a wise man. He said, when
was the last time you ate? I don't know. When was the last
time you slept? 36 hours ago. Go get yourself
some food, go to bed, and call me in the morning. And she did,
and everything was okay. Sometimes we have physical needs. Sometimes we have friends that
have physical needs. We take care of those physical
needs. Now, don't get me wrong. Sometimes there's receptors that
don't make the connections, and the electrons aren't firing,
and sometimes we do need medicine. I do believe doctors over-prescribe
the medicine for depression. But sometimes there's an actual
physical need for that depression, okay? I'm not gonna rule that
out, I'm not stupid. I know there's cases where that's the case.
But I think we do over-prescribe it. So sometimes we need to take
care of the physical, but once we take care of the physical,
okay, get to work. Start serving others. And that
was the case with Elijah, okay? Take care of the physical. Take
a big step back and say, okay, what's lacking? You're wearing
yourself out. I know a church, and now you're going to think
I'm asking for this as a pastor. I'm not to this point, okay? But I know a church that makes
their pastor take four or five days off every quarter. just get away. Now it's a lot
bigger church and they've got a lot more services than we have
and he actually just wears them out and what they do is they
just make them. They said it's time for you to
go. We can tell it in your preaching. It's time for you to go. And
you're laughing. Maybe you're doing that today.
It's time for you to go. Okay? But the point is, when he comes
back, they know that if they don't do this, it's just going
to get worse and worse. But they know when he gets back,
he's going to be revived. But every quarter, they just send
him off. Go. You and your wife just take off.
They make arrangements to watch kids and all that kind of stuff.
There's a point where we need to do that. And we, as friends,
we can look and see. Wow. Now, I haven't noticed this,
but let's just say it's Melanie and Danny right there. And we're
looking at this and, wow, they look frazzled. OK. Drop your
kids off and go. Go. Go out to dinner. Go get
a bedroom breakfast. 24 hours. I can't give you four
or five days, but maybe I can do a day. Just go. Just take
care of the physical. But then when you get back, get
to work and start working on other people. OK? That's how
you break out of the funk. OK? All right. So what I found
is when we get into that font, now those were some of the people
I looked at. We looked at Moses, we looked at Elijah. Job was
a good one. He had a death wish. Let's read
that. Brother Richard mentioned him
a little earlier. He'll be the last one I look at. But I'll
just tell you about the others. Jeremiah got to that place in
Jeremiah 20 and 14. And Jonah got to that place in
Jonah 4 and verse 1. But Job got to that place in
Job 3. Let me read verse 11 and 12. Now, Job got himself to a place,
and he did not isolate him from counselors, but what do you think
of those three counselors that he had? He probably better have
been off isolating himself in this case, right? But then we
get around to chapter 32, 33, and that young guy came forward
and gave him some good advice. But here was a point where he
got, and remember even his wife, first guy to die. What kind of
advice is that? That's terrible advice, right?
So he was surrounded, but it wasn't by very good counselors.
But look what he says here in chapter 3 and verse 11. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost
when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me?
or why the breasts that I should suck. In other words, he says,
Lord, why did you let me live? Why didn't you just take me out
in the womb when I was born? Why didn't you just take me then?
He got pretty depressed place. And he was looking at his surroundings.
He was looking around the events and he got a met. I've never
suffered anything even close. He lost 10 children. He lost
all his stuff and even had a terrible disease. Now he didn't take his
life, but the boils were so bad he busted up pots and he was
scraping the stuff off of him just to give him relief. Terrible
place. I'd be pretty depressed too.
He got to a point where he says, God, why was I even born? Why was I born? Why didn't you
just take me out in the womb so I didn't have to endure all
this? But what did Job do? He was talking to God. Unlike
the first fellows, at least he was talking to God. That's the
place you start talking to God. And then you surround yourself
with the counselors. Jeremiah got there. He was saying
very similar things in chapter 20. And Jonah, let's look at
Jonah. I gotta look at him. He's a character.
Let's go to the book of Jonah. He's one of the minor prophets. Amos, and then it goes Obadiah,
then Jonah. Jonah 4. You know what Jonah's
problem was? It wasn't pride. It wasn't depression. It wasn't ego. You know what
it was? It was just mad. He didn't get
his way. Jonah 4 and verse 1, but it displeased
Jonah exceedingly And he was angry. He says, you want me to
preach to who? I don't want to go there and
preach. And he ended up in a whale's belly, and he ended up getting
put out on the land. And God says, go preach to him.
He says, I don't want to preach to him. You're just going to
go forgive him. And he preaches to him. And they repent, and
God forgives him. And he says, see, I told you
so. Just kill me. Man, oh man, what kind of preacher
is that? I think I've counseled people
about that in Rational before. And I've got to admit in my mind,
I've probably been there too. Okay? Let's keep on reading. And he prayed unto the Lord,
at least he's talking to God. Even in his illogical, miserable
thinking, he's still praying to God. Oh Lord, was not this
my saying when I was yet in a country, therefore I fled before unto
Tarshish, for I knew thou art a gracious God, and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from
thee, for it is better for me to die than live." Who says? Who says it's better for you
to die than live? You preach God's word, people
listen to it, God forgives them, and they're acting godly, and
you want to die? Isn't that craziness? Think of some of the deals we've
made with God. Think of some of the reasoning and the rationale
that you've heard from people that are dealing with God that
way. What do you do? Well, the first thing is you
get them talking to God. Then you get him surrounded by
people with good counsel, and then you put him to work. And
you know what he did? He said, Joe, verse four, then
said the Lord, doest thou well to be angry? And he sent him
to preach, go work. So what's my conclusion to suicide? It's a sin. Thou shall not kill,
thou shall not kill includes thou shall not kill thyself.
Yes, people get to very miserable states and sometimes it's physical.
It's up to us to look and figure out what that physical is, address
the physical if we can, food, sleep deprivation, give them
a break, give them relief, send them help. Moses needed help,
he got 70 helpers. Go out and bless them in any
way you can, take the load off of them, but then put them to
work. but I've met folks that refuse to go to work. I met folks
that refuse godly counsel. I met folks that are mad at God
and will not talk to God and push themselves and find themselves
a long ways from God. My friends, all those things
are sin. All those are sin. But they're not sins to the point
where Jesus' blood cannot cover that. Don't get me wrong there,
okay? So we covered a touchy subject
of suicide. Last week we touched on euthanasia.
Remember euthanasia? We talked about pulling life
support. There's one more I want to talk
about. I want to talk about capital punishment. Time's going by very
quickly. Let's read two passages. Let's
go to Leviticus 24 and 17. We're switching gears. We're
still talking about thou shall not kill. We've just switched
off of suicide, and we talk about capital punishment just for a
second. Let's go to Leviticus 24 and 17. Leviticus 24 and 17. Here's what God says. He that
killeth any man shall surely be put to death. Now, on the
surface, that sounds like a contradiction, an oxymoron, right? Remember
like the bumper sticker I told you about last week? I was driving
down the road, had a red light, the car in front of me on the
back says, why do we kill people who kill people to show that
killing people's wrong? Something's wrong with that logic.
Something's backwards. The words aren't lining up. Sister Susan shared with me something
on the internet. I think I can do this. It was
a public forum. But she was questioned about
a syllogism of a person used. And there was a reasoning this
person used, and they said, the Bible says, fear God, right? And then below that it said,
God is love. And below that, there's a verse
that says, there's no fear in love, or love casted out fear,
right? Doesn't that sound like? But
the problem is, and Susan picked up on it right away, those are
two different kind of fears. We're taking one word, and we're
lining it up, and it's not going together. One fear is a reverential
awe, and the other fear is I'm scared, and they're not the same,
and you can't line them up in a syllogism that way. Well, it's the same
thing with the word kill. You almost have to assert there
killing innocent blood and killing guilty blood, two completely
different things. Now, let's read this verse again.
And he that killeth any innocent man, the guilty shall surely
be put to death. When you read it that way and
you take in all of God's word, it drives. Let's go to Deuteronomy
19 and verse 11. Deuteronomy 19 and verse 11.
19 and 11. I'll read 11 through
13. But if any man hate his neighbor
and lie in wait for him and rise up against him and smite him
mortally that he die and fleeth into one of these cities, then
the elders of the cities shall send and fetch him thence, and
deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he
may die." Here's another case where we're talking about a person
that had committed murder. It was guilty. It was a murder,
not an accidental killing. With this murder, the perpetrator
is killed. It's not a contradiction when
you keep in mind God doesn't like the slang of innocent blood.
But he demands the slaying of guilty blood. That's the way
he says it. Here's a couple that'll make
you wonder. Did you realize God actually
got mad at a couple kings for letting people go that he should
have executed? I find two cases in the Bible
where God said, kill them. The king didn't do it, released
him and let him go, and God got angry at the king for not obeying
him. One was King Saul, I'll not turn
there. One was King Saul in 1 Samuel
15 verse 8, and the other one was King Ahab in 1 Kings 42.
You can look those up later on, but God said, I put them into
your hands. You need to execute them. And
these two kings didn't do it. And God got mad at them. He said,
you needed to kill them. All right. The Bible says, thou
shall not kill. You know, it's interesting. We talked a little bit about
this last week, about the cities of refuge. That's just a tremendous
concept. Let me kind of give you that
scenario. That scenario will kind of give you a good backdrop
of maybe how we should know. You know, our legal system really
isn't that far off from what God's is, the way our legal system
was intended. When you look at God and you
look at all his scenarios, it's kind of like he had a first degree
murder, a second degree murder. He also had negligent homicide,
right? That's right. He also asked for motive. One
of the things we were determining, whether things are murder or
not, is what did the man gain, right? He asked for motive. So
there's a lot of similar areas where this country's legal system
was set up. But then as time went by, we went and messed it
all up by redefining life. You know what our definition
of life is? It's what science or medicine can cure or allowed to survive. Science cannot
do anything for an embryo or a fetus less than 24 weeks. Therefore,
it's not a life. But after 24 weeks, science can
do it. Therefore, it is a life. Unless you have a Dow's baby.
We can't fix a Dow's baby. Therefore, after 24 weeks, it's
not a life. Some of these court rulings are
incredible. So it was set up pretty good, but then we start
going back and redefining what life is and what life is not.
And that's when we get into trouble. There was a, this is back in
my banking days. And when I was in the begging
days, I used to have to go to Chicago a lot. I was working
in Detroit, but we had to go to Chicago a lot. And the way
you go to Chicago is you fly into O'Hare Airport, and there's
a train that takes you into downtown. It's about an hour train ride.
So I'd fly into O'Hare Airport, get on the train, and go. And
one of these times, I was sitting there, and I saw an anti-abortion
thing on there that I thought was fantastic. They said three
times in the history of our country has life not been defined as
a life? Really? I looked at that thing
and one of them was slavery. The black race will never achieve
what the white race is, therefore it is not a life. And therefore
we bought and sold property and did different things like that.
The second time was during World War II. It wasn't us, but it
was during the history of our nation. where the Aryan race,
or the Jewish race, was not as profitable as the Aryan race,
therefore it is not a life. And now we're into our third
sequence. A fetus, less than 24 weeks,
is not a life, because it cannot be stained by medicine, therefore
it is not a life, and it is not murder to kill. I got into town, I asked him,
wow, that's a great advertising campaign. That was on a Thursday
or Friday. By Monday, they said they were
all taken down. They were all taken down. They
got people too mad. I thought it was, I thought it
was fantastic. But that's what they did, okay? All right, so
our court systems in a lot of ways mimic what God had, but
God had something in the Old Testament that we never even
had, and it's called these cities of refuge. Now, I want to kind
of give you a great big picture of what it is. Now at the time
Israel was divided, there was some land on the east side and
the west side of the Jordan River, and they had three cities of
refuge on each side. They had one on each side of
the north, two in the central, and then two in the southern
part. And they had all these rules about a city of refuge.
If I would have committed an accident and someone was killed
or my ox killed someone or I got in a fist fight and we got really
mad and someone died, I would take off and I would run to one
of these cities of refuge. It's kind of like a, you know
how you play tag and kind of have a ghoul, okay, or what do
you call it, a ghoul? You'd run to those cities because
no one could get you and they would wait and do an investigation
and they would have a trial and they would take care of all that.
Now it's really neat. Of these six cities of refuge,
they always had a highway detail that always made the roads passable.
They always had a highway detail that made sure there was always
great big signs that said city of refuge that way. And they
had them centrally located so everybody could always get to
one in a day's journey. Now this was all set up in the Old Testament
where you could run and you could go there and you could wait for
your tribe. And when you got there, whoever was mad, if it
was, let's say someone killed my brother in a fight, and I
said, I'm going to get you, and he would take off to the city
of refuge. When I got to the city of refuge, I couldn't do anything.
All I could do is go to the elders and say, I'm mad at this guy.
I want to have a trial. And they would have this trial. And if
the people found him innocent, he would abide there. And if
the people would find him guilty, they would turn him out, and
he would be executed. But what's really interesting
about those cities of refuge is let's suppose we were out in
the woods, and I was chopping woods, and there I am, chopping
the woods, and in my backstroke, the axe head flies off, and it
hits Brother Richard, and it kills him. Totally accident,
incidental, all the witnesses around, but what God's law said
is, we happen to have an investigation, so as soon as that happened,
I go, uh-oh, and I would run to one of these cities of refuge,
and they would have a trial. And when they had this trial,
and they said, nope, we got all the witnesses. He didn't strike
them. He was in a backstroke. It absolutely just flew off there.
He didn't know it was a little banded axe or anything was going
on. He was completely innocent. Guess what happened? I had to
live in that city of refuge for a certain point in time, even
though I was 100% innocent. I sat there scratching my head,
and I said, God, why would you do that? Well, unlike the city
of refuge made a place where an innocent person could hide
or it could be safe until an investigation was done, that
part seemed just right. But why make that innocent person
live there? Don't you know my wife and kids
and my family and my dad's there and there's the family farm and
I work that thing and it's really important for me to be there.
Why make me be away? You know what God was doing?
He was protecting the family from revenge. He said, we need
a buffer. We need a buffer. Dolph, I know
you're innocent, but you got to stay in this city because
if you just sit there and start going to work and those family
members are around and seeing you're in proximity, you got
to stay there because they're going to get mad and they're
going to strike out and kill you. And then we're going to have
a Hatfield and McCoys going on. So God created this system Not
only to protect the person during the trial period, but to protect
families from coming together and having fights. I think, boy,
Lord, that's kind of extreme. What about that poor family?
Well, what about the poor family of the victim of the accident?
God was far-reaching in the way he looked at that. So we look
at this thing and we're looking at scripture and we say, thou
shall not kill. God was even taking measures to make sure
things didn't even flare up. I got one more thought. I think
I can finish it in a couple seconds. Let's go to Matthew 26. This
is kind of like the icing on the cake. There's basically some questions,
if you're looking at abortion, if you're looking at euthanasia,
suicide, capital punishment, do not resuscitate, bullying
life support equipment, and all those questions, you've got to
ask these questions. Is it innocent blood or is it guilty blood?
Is it premeditated or is it spontaneous? Is someone gaining from it or
someone not? And is death being hurried up or is there simply
medicine delaying it and you're just letting God take over? Those
are all the questions you've got to ask. But to top it all
off, God makes one more statement. There's one more principle to
be done. Matthew 26 and verse 52, Peter is completely innocent. Let's start up here at verse
51. And when behold, one of them which were with Jesus, this is
Peter, out of his hand drew his sword and struck a servant of
the high priest and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto
him, put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword. Hmm. This is an act of self-defense.
They were going after Jesus and Peter was protecting Jesus. And
he pulled out his sword and he swings at that servant and he
got his ear. I think he was going for his
head, and the guy ducked, and he just got an ear. I think that's
what happened. He missed, and he got an ear. And Jesus turns
to Peter and says, you know what? You had a right to defend yourself. But when you take that line,
you're setting yourself life up for a life of hardship. You
live by the sword. I'm sorry, you use this word,
you're gonna live by this word. You know, one of the things I
see interesting with David, David wanted to build a house, a temple
for God. And God says, uh-uh, I can't
let you do it. You've got too much blood on
your hands. And all the blood that he had was what? It was
in wartime. But he says, uh-uh, nope, nope,
nope, you're not the guy. Think about our revenge. Even
if you have the right, even if you are perfectly lawful and
you execute your revenge, God says, the way, you know, like
kind of what goes around comes around. He's saying the way you
live your life, the way you retaliate is the way that's gonna work.
I find it really interesting. Now, when I was gone on Wednesday,
I gave a little study, and I understand that Brother Richard did a great
job of doing that and presenting that on Wednesday night. But
one of the things that, what we did on Wednesday night, I
guess what you all did on Wednesday night, I wasn't here, but the
way we did it, is Saul trying to kill David on eight different
occasions. And what I was trying to teach
with that lesson was, yeah, God delivered David a lot of different
ways. Sometimes he used a deep sleep.
Sometimes he used an invading army. Sometimes he used David's
nimbleness to be able to just to duck. And his brother Wayne
says, jump out the window, right? But whatever it is, God used
a lot of different means to deliver David, which is really neat.
The thing I see amazing is, not once did David ever try to retaliate
and strike Saul back. He had every right to do it,
but he never did it. There was even one time, I know
you had a discussion on this, this is my take on it. This is
the seventh time Saul tried to kill David. David and his men
were in a cave, plastered up against the wall. Shh, be quiet.
Hiding from Saul and his soldiers. And I believe Saul went in the
cave to go potty. And while Saul was in there going
potty, his soldiers are going, David, God's given him to you
on a silver plate, kill him. This is God's will. And David
says, uh-uh, I'm not going to do it. So when I look at David's
life, you know what happens? He did a lot of things as king
that were pretty bad. He could have got killed. But I believe
because he was so faithful to his king, that God protected
him and allowed him a lot of longevity. That's just speculation
and you can take it or leave it. But I think it's this principle
here of what goes around comes around. God gave David a lot
of mercy because David gave Saul a lot of mercy. And I think it's
the same with Peter, what Jesus was trying to teach. You show
mercy and you're going to experience a lot of mercy. might have to go through a lot
of anger and knuckle-headed things that I do. Not her anger, my
anger. Or my impatience. And she continues
to show me mercy. You know what goes around comes
around? God will bless her. Even if I do deserve to be teed
off into, and she still shows me mercy, that's the principle. I think God is going to show
her mercy for being that long-suffering with me. God was long-suffering
with David because David was long-suffering with King Saul.
Friends, when it says, thou shall not kill, even if someone does
something, and I can work it in a way, I'm telling you what,
I know this is recorded, but I've got a couple pistols at
home, and if I see my girls in danger, I'm not going to think
twice.
Thou Shalt Not Kill Part 2
Series Mt. Olive PBC (Roanoke VA)
Preached at Mt. Olive PBC in Roanoke, VA on Sept 30, 2012
| Sermon ID | 109211540414338 |
| Duration | 1:00:00 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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