This is lesson 48 in our series on Christian ethics, I think. We're talking about the sixth commandment. Yeah, 48 says right there. Sixth commandment is you shall not murder. And last week we began to work to define the narrow meaning of that. How would the first recipients of the commandment have understood it? And so we got partway through that. We saw that do not kill is too broad because some killing is allowed. We saw that do not murder is too narrow because murder implies intention for us. And we saw that the commandment actually prohibits unintentional, careless killing. So we don't really have a perfect English word for that. So we just have to try to understand what's all included in that verb itself. We saw the penalties for intentional killing, the penalty for intentional killing was death. We saw the penalty for unintentional killing was that you had to be banished to the city of refuge until the high priest died. So there are different penalties for different types of murder or different levels. And then we began to look at lawful killing, killing that those that the people who received the sixth commandment would have understood to still be permitted under the sixth commandment. And there were four categories. Oops, forgot that was there. Four categories. And we got through the first two, killing, non-human life, and capital punishment. And then we still need to look briefly at self-defense and war. But so that first class there, killing of non-human life, I'm still debating in my head exactly what to do with this. But I thought I needed to offer a little bit of a clarification. I showed you Genesis 9 and it shows that the killing of animals, the eating of animals, was lawful. And we saw that even in the Law of Moses, you could eat animals. And that was really the point of it. But in showing you that, we got into the discussion of animal blood, and there were questions after about that. So I think I'm not going to do very much with this. I'm just going to show you something and kind of frame this, and we may come back to it because it's an interesting case. It's not a very important one, but it is an interesting one. The eating of animal blood. There is in the law of Moses prohibition against eating the blood of animals. This is Leviticus 17. And any man from the house of Israel or from the sojourners who sojourn among them who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I've given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, no person among you may eat blood, and no sojourner who sojourns among you may eat blood. So any man from the sons of Israel or from the sojourners who sojourn among them who in hunting catches a beast or a bird which may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, you're not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. And Diane was actually saying, you know, she's very familiar with some Old Testament stories. Some of you have been through Miss Diane's class. She says, well, what about when Saul made his rash vow and they couldn't eat, and so they were very hungry, so they began to eat without pouring the blood out, and they were condemned for that. So, well, yeah, that's a violation of the law of Moses. So, what how do this was what makes this an interesting test case? You've got Genesis, which is in the Noahic covenant, which applies to all people for all time. It hasn't been abrogated. You have the Law of Moses, which I argued has been. You have the New Testament discussion of the law. And then you have Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council. And so how do you put all of that together? I think it's an interesting test case, right? Because it will force you to think about how you want to handle the law of Moses as a Christian. So my conclusion, I thought this was a good way to put it. This is my conclusion. This is from the Got Questions guys. I thought they tend to put things in kind of pithy little answers. In short, ordering your steak rare or well done is a matter of conscience and of taste. What enters the mouth does not make us unclean. Eating black pudding may not appeal to everyone except Paul, but it is not a sin. We live under grace. We have liberty in Christ. Others may have different convictions about food and drink, and in that case, we voluntarily limit our freedom in order to better serve them and God. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. So that's all I want to say about it because it's tangential to what we're talking about. But I think it'd be cool if you were thinking about it, maybe talking about it at home and thinking about how do I put all of this together? How do I determine what the Bible, what the whole Bible says about a thing? And a thing like this is good because we can talk about it and laugh about it and argue about it. The first time I was taught about this, I was taught that Christians should not have rare meat. And I don't believe that to be true, but think through that yourself and you may come to that conclusion. The point, the important point for us, back to the Sixth Commandment, is that.

That eating killing animals is permitted under the Sixth Commandment. Okay. We also saw that the Sixth Commandment allowed for the killing of someone for a capital crime. We'll go into that in more detail later, see if there's any changes in the New Testament related to that idea. So, for the rest of our time today, I want to take a look at the other two permissions and then look at how all this applies to the Christian life. What are the ethical obligations of the Sixth Commandment as they apply to us in the New Covenant? So, back to permitted killings. The third one that I had listed there was self-defense, or what the Westminster divines referred to as necessary defense. And there is in the law of Moses a passage that indicates the killing of a person in self-defense is permissible. This is Exodus 22:1 through 4: If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guiltiness on his account. But if the sun has risen on him, there will be blood guiltiness on his account. He shall surely make restitution. If he owns nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If what he stole is actually found alive in his hand, whether an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double. So verse 2 allows for the killing of someone who's breaking into your home at night. Now, as with very often with these passages, the point that I want to make sure that I'm making can be hidden behind other things that are there in the passage. And so, the big question in this is: well, what about this sunrise exception? You can defend yourself at night, but not during the day? And verse 3 is a puzzle. And it is difficult to interpret. I'm going to cut to the chase a little bit on that. This is an interpretation from Scott Ray in his moral choices. And I think that makes sense. The break-in occurs at night, but when daylight comes, the victim goes to search out the intruder in order to reclaim his stolen property and exact revenge, finds him, and kills him. There's guilt in this case since the intruder is no longer an imminent threat, and thus the victim has no claim of self-defense that would justify the use of lethal force. There could even be premeditation involved in this pursuit of retaliation. Thus, the passage is not distinguishing strictly between nighttime and daytime break-ins, but between self-defense and revenge. In any case, the text seems to support the general principle of self-defense, at least on some occasions. And I think that interpretation is supported by verses 3 and 4, talking about restitution. So if you are, if you're, in other words, I think what it's really saying is: if someone is actively trying to break into your home and you don't know their full intention, you are justified in taking their lives. Whether that happens in day or night doesn't matter. You are not justified in knowing who it is because you caught them on your blink camera and hunting them down. I think that's really the idea. Self-defense, okay. Revenge, not okay. I think, so that's how I interpret that. But again, the main point of this is that self-defense is allowed, at least in some cases. That's very clear from verse 2. And we're going to come back to that when we think about self-defense and war kind of together, because they're obviously related concepts. We have to think about: does turning the other cheek prohibit self-defense? You know, when Jesus said turn the other cheek? What difference does more advanced weaponry make? What do we do about guns? I know where I live, so, you know, I won't even ask, is it okay to have guns? Might be okay to ask, is it okay to have nine or twenty or you know, but just always need one more. That's what I was saying. But so we'll think about those things. But for us for today, it's clear that self-defense is permitted. They would have understood that self-defense is permitted in some cases. So this is an exception to or a clarification of the Sixth Commandment. They would have understood that. The fourth exception related is lawful war or just war. And killing in war in the Bible never uses that rot sack. It uses the generic common word for killing, but that word doesn't necessarily imply that it's sinful. It's a morally neutral word. And of course, the Israelites understood that God commands war, that there are times when God does command war. And so killing in war was not prohibited. This is just one example, Deuteronomy 20, 16 through 18. Only in the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall devote them to destruction, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you. So that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations, which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against Yahweh your God. So it's a clear command to kill in war. And we're going to talk about the conquest of Canaan. The conquest of Canaan is this sort of killing, this brutal killing that happens in the conquest of Canaan, is the thing that is probably the number one thing that people point to as their reason for deconstructing their faith or those sorts of things. It's hard for us to get our minds around this, but we have to. Your theology has to allow.

For the fact of the conquest of Canaan. Otherwise, you're going to have a problem somewhere down the road, right? Because this is here. It is in the Bible. This is true. This is something God commanded. So we have to deal with that. And then we have to think about what about our case, where nations are not commanded to war by God. Could we support a just war? What is a just war for us? What about something, again, what difference does weaponry make? What about something so destructive as a nuclear war? Could that ever be a just war? We have to think about that. But for our purposes today, again, trying to see how they would have first received this commandment, the Israelites would have understood that war, killing and war, is permissible, even commanded at times. This is kind of the conclusion. This is from Dalma. Surely the Bible is not pacifist. Numerous wars were fought at God's command or with his approval. So we can hardly characterize war with the generalization that it is sin. So we have to admit that killing in war is not always sin. So we'll talk more about that later. But that's how the Israelites would have then understood the Sixth Commandment. They would have understood it to include intentional killing, careless killing of human beings, but they would have understood that self-defense, capital punishment, war sometimes permitted. So now we're going to ask the important question: as we're not Israelites, has anything changed? Has anything changed regarding the content of the Sixth Commandment? Is there anything in the New Covenant that's changed any of the permissions or prohibitions of the Sixth Commandment as it applies to us as Christians? Should we understand it differently? Well, in the New Testament, murder is listed repeatedly in lists of sins, lists of vices. Murder is seen as a sinful action, a sinful attitude, even a sinful attribute, a murderous person. There are several Greek words that are translated as murder or kill, just very similar to Hebrew. The main one is this class of words. Fanos is a noun. It's usually translated as murder. Fanous is another noun that's for the murderer. And fanuo is the verb for murder, to murder. And this is the class of words that is used always for the translation from the Old Testament Sixth Commandment to the New. Septuagint, you guys know that's a Greek translation of the Old Testament. And the Greek word that was used for Exodus 20, 13 and Deuteronomy 5, 17 is the same phanu. That's a different form of it, but that's the verb. And then every time you see every time that the commandment is translated into Greek, or I guess, yeah, I guess it's quoted from the Hebrew into the Greek. That's the verb that's used. Every time. So that tells us that the Greek verb phanu gets us as close to the rot sack as we can get. However, it's not the same. Somebody asked about this, I think it was Jake, about this after class last week. Does the word have the same semantic meaning in the New Testament? And it does not. In the New Testament, and it's very interesting and important, in the New Testament, this word refers to intentional killing. It does not include the idea of unintentional killing. So we have to ask ourselves why. The Sixth Commandment, and originally, it prohibited accidental, careless killing of a human being. The New Testament doesn't address that idea at all. Not really. So why not? Well, because it doesn't have to. The New Testament doesn't have to address it. Excuse me. Here's a really deep point. One thing about unintentional killing is it's unintentional. The New Testament isn't concerned with defining appropriate legal penalties for unintentional acts. That's not the concern of the New Testament. The law of Moses had to be concerned with that because the law of Moses was the civil and criminal law of the land. The law of Christ in the New Testament is not. So not concerned with what should the civil or criminal penalty be associated with someone doing an unintentional killing. The New Testament doesn't have to address that and so doesn't. But it doesn't mean that there's no concern for life or less concern for life in the New Covenant. It just doesn't have to go through case law and say, well, so what happens if an axe head falls off, flies off, and kills somebody? Because there were already civil criminal penalties associated with that in whatever land Christians would find themselves living in. You know, the New Testament is concerned, the New Covenant is concerned primarily with the heart of the sinner. The concern is not just for the act, but for the attitude that lives behind it, for the attribute of the person that lives that out. So there is, in a sense, a different application of the commandment from the law of Moses to the New Testament. But no less concern with life, and we'll see that. Before we move on, though, does that make sense to you? Okay. Let's go to Matthew 5. You'll see the essential New Testament teaching on murder. Matthew 5, 21 through 25.

26. Part of the Sermon on the Mount. You've heard that the ancients were told, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be guilty before the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Whoever says to his brother, Rakta, shall be guilty before the Sanhedrin, 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're 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 be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you've paid up the last quadrant. So again, this is from the Sermon on the Mount. Really, really important we understand some context around this. I gave you a big bunch of the passage, but understand what's happening at the Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount is a very evangelical sermon. In that sermon, Jesus Christ is convincing his hearers that they are not righteous. He is convincing them that they do not have, through the law which they are attempting to obey, they do not have sufficient righteousness to do that. They need an alien righteousness. He's telling them that they need a Savior by showing them the law. Very similar to when you share the gospel with somebody, you proclaim the gospel to somebody, you start with a law. You first have to show them the bad news. Here's what the law says about you and your need for a savior. If you're unaware that you have a need for a savior, you will not be saved. You'd never embrace a savior unless you understood that you needed one. Because there's costs associated with that. They needed a righteousness outside of themselves. They needed Jesus Christ. And so he has to teach them that. So these are a couple of verses that frame the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:20, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Maybe, maybe somebody could think, well, maybe I could do that. I mean, they're hypocrites. But then he says, therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That's the standard. You want to know God's standard? It's perfection. You have to be perfect, perfectly righteous. So it's part of a law, gospel presentation. So you can see then in the context Jesus is pointing out that it's not just the act of willful murder that carries culpability. It's more than that. He's pointing it out to them. It's also the sinful attitude of the heart, anger, hatred. Those things are also condemned as murder. So he's condemning the act, the attitude, even the attribute, the general attributes of pride and hatred that are all part of murder. So this is the antidote to self-righteousness. If you are preaching the gospel to somebody, often you'll get somewhere along the line, if it's kind of beginning to take, you'll get a comment like, well, at least I've never killed anybody, or I'm not as bad as Hitler, Manson, Dahmer, whoever the, I'm not as bad as some horrible murderer. And Jesus is telling them, yes, you are. Yes, you are. You are in numerous of these ethics texts that I read through for this common refrain, we are all murderers. Properly understood, we're all murderers. Because we all harbor hate, we all harbor unjustified anger in our hearts for people. Most often it shows up in driving. Why that is, I don't know. It happens a lot behind keyboards nowadays. But often even just in our own minds. You see, we're going to see that. We're going to see it in a lot of ways. We're going to make those small applications. I'll do one of those at the end today. But we are all murderers, and that's what he's teaching us. Just look at verse 22. I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be guilty before the Sanhedrin. Whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Unless you think it's just those particular terms, it isn't. If you are demeaning someone, you are insulting them, you are thinking of them, you call them an idiot, you call them a moron, you call them a whatever. It all fits here, right? We can see then that it's not just the outward act of actual physical murder that is condemned, but everything that goes underneath it. The hatred, the anger, the disdain for another human being. That's enough to condemn you to hell. That's enough. Apart from the Savior. Look at these two. If you're presenting your offering at the altar and they'll 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. See, it's so serious. To have that anger is so serious. Don't worship. Stop. Go and get this thing figured out. Notice, even if you're not angry, but you know somebody else is angry with you, you got to go get that figured out. That's what Jesus is teaching. Now, in the context of the Sixth Commandment, this is not a new teaching. It isn't new. It was part of the law of Moses. This is Leviticus 19.

You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people. You shall not stand against the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You may surely reprove your neighbor and so not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance. You shall not keep your anger against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. So not only would intentional murder be unlawful in either the old covenant or the new, so is this carelessness that causes death or injury to someone. So is insulting them. So is being angry with them, unless it's some justified anger, some just cause. All of that's the opposite of love for neighbor, and love for neighbor is the overarching relationship ethic in the Bible. Love for neighbor. So the sixth commandment is an expression of the exact opposite of that, that hatred for people. We see it often. 1 John 3:15, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. 1 John is one of those books that, you know, I kind of feel like I should read it every day. There's no uncertainty with John in 1 John. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. And then more from the Sermon on the Mount. You've heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you're to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. It's the essential relationship ethic: love. Love for God, love for your brother, love for your neighbor, even love for your enemy. And it's all grounded in that essential truth that we saw from Genesis 9: Man is made in the image of God, and as such is deserving of dignity, respect, protection. You don't have to have the same degree of love toward everybody. You need to go through all that. But we do have to have a degree of love and honor for all people. Peter says it this way: honor all people, just as you would honor the king. Honor all people. Love the brethren. Different relationship towards your brothers and sisters in Christ. But honor all people. Love the brethren. Fear God. Honor the king. So there's no weakening of the commandment from the law of Moses to the new covenant. Not only do we not kill intentionally or be careless and cause death unintentionally, we go out of our way to be good to all people. Luke 6: But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who disparage you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your garment, do not withhold your tunic from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and we'll clarify that, right? So don't get, it doesn't mean you have to give every, if you lived in Seattle and you took this very literally, you would be bankrupt. So give to everyone to ask you, whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. And treat others the same way you want them to treat you. And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great. You will be the sons of the Most High. For he himself is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. In Romans 12, bless those who persecute you. Bless. Do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. By being of the same mind toward one another, not being haughty in mind, but associating with the humble. Do not be wise in your own mind. Never paying back evil for evil to anyone. Respecting what is good in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, being at peace with all men. Never taking your own revenge. Beloved, instead, leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I'll repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you'll heap burning coals on his head. So not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. That's the ethic. So nothing in our understanding of the content of the Sixth Commandment that prohibited intentional or unintentional killing, none of that changes with respect to the new covenant. Christian ethic includes those same prohibitions, same content as we find in the Sixth Commandment as given to Israel. We're to take care with regard to human life. That continues. We're going to look at those exceptions again. Capital punishment, war, self-defense, issues around those things. But as far as the general prohibitions and permissions of the Sixth Commandment, there's no real change in the content. So what we learn from how they would have originally received it is very close to how we would also need to receive it. Okay, so the last and I think the best illustration biblically of the ethical requirements related to the Sixth Commandment in the New Testament is the parable of the Good Samaritan. So I want to just look through that. This is from Luke 10. Jesus replied and said, what he's replying to is the question of who is my neighbor. Jesus replied and said, a man was going down from

Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. And a priest happened to be going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. And he came to him and he bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. And he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, Take care of him. And whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you. And which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And he said, the one who showed mercy toward him. Then Jesus said to him, Go and do the same. Go and do the same. So the robbers in the story broke a few commandments, right? One of which was the sixth, also the eighth, probably the tenth. Who knows, right? But certainly they broke the sixth. They didn't kill him, but they didn't care if he died. They weren't being careful about his life. They violated the sixth commandment. What about the priest of the Levite? Did they break any commands? This is precisely the point of the parable. They broke the sixth commandment. They did not take care to protect the life. They did not do that which was in their power to do to defend the life of an innocent human being. They didn't do it. It's interesting to conjecture why not. Sometimes we forget, it's just a parable, so there is really no answer to this. Why did they just cross the road? Why didn't they take care of him? Reichen has a good commentary on Exodus, and he put this, I thought it was kind of just interesting, because it so relates to me and the way I'm able to justify this in my own self. It's not hard to imagine reasons why. Maybe they were late for worship. Maybe they told themselves he was already dead. Maybe they just didn't want to get involved. But whatever the reason, they both made a deliberate choice not to save the dying man. The priest of the Levites saw that he was in need, yet they made a conscious decision to avoid him. They looked the other way, pretending not to notice, and they went to the other side of the road. It was a shocking thing for men in their position to do. In a way, the worst thing that happened to the victim that day was not getting mugged, but getting rejected by his spiritual leaders who were too busy to save his life. Too busy. So the person that actually, the person in the story that actually fulfilled his obligation of the Sixth Commandment is the Samaritan. He spent his time and his money to help this person. So I'm going to end this section and then make one application. I'm going to end this section with two reformed confessions. And I want you to just see these. And these are available online. These are maybe good to refresh on your own. This is about the Sixth Commandment, the Heidelberg Catechism. These are questions 105 through 107. Question 105 is, what is God's will for you in the Sixth Commandment? And listen how they take this. I am not to belittle, hate, insult, or kill my neighbor. Not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by actual deeds. And I'm not to be party to this in others. Rather, I'm to put away all desire for revenge. I'm not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either. Prevention of murder is also why government is armed with the sword. We'll look at that related to capital punishment. And then question 106, does this commandment refer only to murder? By forbidding murder, God teaches us that he hates the root of murder. Envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness. In God's sight, all such are disguised forms of murder. In question 107, is it enough then that we do not murder our neighbor in any such way? I've never killed anybody. I'm not bad. No. By 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 as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies. So what do you think of that? Yeah, Cornell? Yeah, so, yeah. Leave room for the wrath of God in its context precedes directly Romans 13, which talks about the state serving as a servant of God who bears the sword and is an avenger of God's wrath. So that's the context of that. We're not to take our own vengeance, not to take the law into our own hands. God will take care of it either through the state as his servant or himself. Yeah. But to have that attitude of, well, oh boy, one of these days God will get him. We have to think about that. It's good. Anything else? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about it, and you weren't here, but we kind of talked about all of that. Like, is there a conflict of duties and what happens if there's a conflict of duties? This guy wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. I guess if you could say, and it's a parable, right? But you could make up in your mind of some justification for them. Like, well, they didn't want to become. But Christ offers no such justification. But you're right. There are hierarchies of duties. We have to go back and go through those. Yeah. And that's the context of the parable. He says, love your neighbor. And then he's asked, well, who's my neighbor? He said, well, who do you think is a neighbor?

You're supposed to love all the image bearers of God. So that's a good point. So you're really going to like this next part, Angelica. The Westminster Larger Catechism also talks about the Sixth Commandment. Really interesting, the expansion that the Puritans did on this. Which is the Sixth Commandment, Sixth Commandment, thou shalt not kill. Okay. That was question 134. Question 135 is, what are the duties required in the Sixth Commandment? Look at this. The duties required in the Sixth Commandment are all careful studies and lawful endeavors to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any. By just defense thereof against violence. They're expanding on that. Patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit, a sober use of meat, drink, physic medicines, sleep, labor, and recreation. By charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness, peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior, forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, requiting good for evil, comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent. Puritans didn't mess around. What are the sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment? The sins forbidden in the Sixth Commandment are all taking away the life of ourselves or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, necessary defense. The neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life. We'll talk about euthanasia. Sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge, all excessive passions, distracting cares, immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations, provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any. So you see the broad implications of the command, both positively and negatively. We have responsibilities under the content of that command. So next week we're going to look at, and I'm not done yet, so sometimes say next week and people start getting their stuff off. Next week, we're going to talk about some specific forms of killing, and we'll see how far we get. We'll start with abortion. We'll look at euthanasia, suicide, assisted suicide. Try to understand those things. Very complicated. They're both very simple and they can become very complicated in dealing with actual situations. So we'll have a lot to think about there. But there are very simple applications to this. We could get bogged down in thinking about, well, what about in vitro fertilization? But you deal with stuff every single day that isn't that hard to figure out. So let's just use a simple application. Do you do things that put your life or the lives of others at risk needlessly? Do you drive aggressively? How about distracted driving? Do you text while you drive? I'll tell you about this chart here in a minute, but National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, they say distracted driving caused over 300,000 injuries, 3,208 deaths in 2024. But since people lie a lot, the statisticians estimate that the cell phone interaction probably caused over 10,000 deaths in 2024. By now, it would be much higher than that. Teen drivers, they spend roughly 21% of their time behind the wheel looking at their phones. This chart, this was your tax dollars at work here, government study where they would have people at intersections, highway exchanges, actually observing people and writing, taking down were they on their phone or not. And I'm pretty sure they also got their license plate number because they did demographics on the people too. Okay? So you enjoy that. So these are different age groups. And some people I know don't read charts and others do. But each line represents a different age group. This is 16 to 24, 25 to 69, and age 70 and over. Good job to you. Yeah. They don't know how to use it. And this only goes to 2024, but see the rapid increase in the number of people, observed, percentage of people observed in these small moments, right? Observed with messing around with a handheld device. This isn't, you know, touching your screen. This is holding a device in your hand. If it was close to 9% in 2024 for younger people, it's got to be higher than that. It's illegal. It's legal in the state of Idaho. It's illegal for any commercial driver anywhere in the U.S. When I was working at a company that I no longer work at because I retired from that company, one of the responsibilities I had was transportation. And if we had a driver that was observed with a cell phone in his hand, he's never driving again for our company. It's too dangerous. We don't allow that. So apart from what the law, what the civil law says, I'm telling you, Christian ethics, you can't do that. That is needlessly taking risks with...

Your life and the lives of others. That's a violation of the content of the Sixth Commandment. Now, unless even the law recognizes there are certain emergency situations where you're doing that actually in order to defend life, you're calling 911 or whatever. I get all that. But in general, that's not what you're doing. Let's be honest. In general, you're looking at your shopping list or the text you got from your friend. So that's what I'm talking about. And you apply that how you want. We face these issues all the time, every day. I was driving in with Jamie this morning. Two people were in the race on the highway to get in front of me so that they could stay in front of me, right in front of me, the whole time. So I would say that was needless risk of life. And the feelings that begin to well up in me are also violations of the Sixth Commandment. So fortunately, I had Jamie there with me. She's very helpful to me too. Help me through stuff like that. Do you understand? Okay. We've got to take these things seriously. Jesus died for them. All right. We're actually out of time, but what did you learn today? Nothing. This is really rewarding. Yeah, Cornell? Yeah, wrong attitudes lead to wrong deeds. The relationship between attitude and act. Yeah, there are really many varied applications. Very broadly applicable command. Yeah. Anything else? Yeah. Passivity is not enough. The absence of the active sin is not sufficient. And we're going to see when we get to the Tenth Commandment. The Tenth Commandment is only about thinking and feeling. It's not at all about acting. In case you don't know your commandments, you should. But the 10th is do not covet. Repeat it off in the New Testament. Yeah, sure. We're good. Yeah. If we don't do those things explicitly prohibited, we're golden. And that's just not true. Yeah. And remembering that the Sermon on the Mount is to point us toward our need for a Savior. Even that, even ethical living for the Christian points us to our need for the Savior. We can't do that. I still get mad when somebody does something really dangerous. So, yeah, Taryn? Yes. Ultimately, love. Peter? Well, I believe that, and Paul believes that. You should work that out. Okay. I think, yeah, that's good. That's good for today. So next week, at least we'll start with abortion and looking at that. And we'll see how far we get. So it's maybe a good week for you to brush up on your thinking about that issue. Let's pray together.