Tonight, I invite you to turn to the first book of the Bible. We come back to Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4, we're considering the Ten Commandments, and tonight we have come to the Sixth Commandment. You shall not murder is the Sixth Commandment. And we will read together tonight the first 16 verses of Genesis, first book of the Bible, chapter 4. This is the word of the Lord. Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry, and why is your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know, and my my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. And the Lord said to him, Not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. And so that we have a good understanding of what we believe the sixth commandment teaches, our Heidelberg asked the question, what is God's will for us in the sixth commandment? And the answer is, I am not to belittle, insult, hate, 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 and others. Rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either. Prevention of murder is why government is armed with the sword. Does this commandment refer only to killing? By forbidding murder, God teaches us that he hates the root of murder, envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness, and God cite all such a murder. Is it enough then that we do not kill our neighbor in any such way? No. By condemning envy, hatred, and anger, God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly to him, to protect him from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies. Well, tonight we are looking at the sixth commandment, you shall not murder. And it's one of those commandments, the Heidelberg correctly takes us a lot deeper into the commandment, but it's one of those commandments that initially we think of when we hear you shall not murder of the really bad of society like we considered this morning, we would see the Mansons or the Bundys or the Petersons of the world. I was curious as to how many murders happen in this country and they say that on average every day there's 44, over 16,000 murders per year in the United States. Maybe that doesn't sound as much as you thought. And then we're taken to all of a sudden after the decision of Roe versus Wade, where abortion was legalized, it's been noted that we have since then murdered 58 million babies. What a thought. What a thought. We are a bloodthirsty people. As you approach the sixth commandment tonight, we're struck with how straightforward it is a simple command it seems at the outset you shall not murder for these words really can't be disputed when we consider what the Lord is is teaching us tonight unlike the second and the fourth commandments where there can be a lot of discussion around how to apply those commandments maybe even with the fifth as we looked at last time this one is so plainly it seems right at the outset clear you shall not murder not saying the others aren't it's just there's been a lot more discussion around some of those but in our day when someone has tried for being a murderer the first thing that is determined of course are the circumstances they look a lot at intent they ask certain questions was it premeditated that's of course murder murder one if somebody kills without premeditation, voluntary manslaughter. If it's a result of recklessness, when we think of recklessness and something that resulted in somebody dying, you have involuntary manslaughter. You have different categories. And even in the Old Testament, as we'll look at when we go through Exodus, there were these sort of situations that were addressed and treated appropriately. But when it comes to someone being killed or murdered, all of these distinctions in Scripture come under the rubric tonight and come under together this particular commandment, the arena of this commandment of the six, where it says, you shall not murder. I'm sure at this point in our study of the ten commandments, our study of them, we know that a commandment like this is going to be rather far-reaching into our lives, don't we? Very far-reaching. You might ask how far reaching and what we find is that the act of murdering someone is the result as we heard in the Heidelberg of something that has taken place deep rooted and deep seated already in the heart so that murder is the act of murder, the act of taking somebody's life is the end of a long problem of something that has already been running its course for some time. At least we see that here in the life of Cain. And that's the reality in Scripture that we want to consider tonight in the Sixth Commandment. I thought to myself, of all the sins to record after the fall, the first sin that gets this kind of treatment is the Sixth Commandment. The very first sin after the fall records the terrible sin of murder, of Cain murdering Abel. most of us are familiar with this we went through it a few years now ago back when we went through genesis and there really is no better place to turn to evaluate where it all starts what it looks like how it runs its course and the damaging effect that it has on society as you saw here we read in in in genesis chapter 4 but how the lord looks at and addresses this problem of the heart. Cain obviously had committed murder one that resulted from such anger and hatred spilling over. We're looking at that tonight, that particular problem of Cain killing his brother, what murdering. It's always been, at least growing up, to think about the fact that a life is stamped out a life is taken when you pause and think about that when the lord breathed life into adam and the lord gave life to to see this go on in our society the way that it does and a life is stamped out what an atrocious what an awful sin i don't know if we've become so used to it today that it doesn't have that effect on us anymore what an awful thing to take someone's life well tonight as we look at this some very important things are inferred and so understanding the background to this murder of Abel at least for a moment and why the sin was so destructive is is helpful so that we read in verse 3 that Cain had brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord and Abel had brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat and the idea being that Abel brought an offering that God had received and accepted and indeed even of the fat of the animal and the Lord had looked upon, the Lord had regarded the offering of Abel. It was done in faith. But he didn't even look upon Cain. And it was from here, I'm not getting into all the details of that, it was from here that something began to happen. It was from this moment that the Lord begins to capture something going on in the heart of Cain. that before Cain had murdered Abel something the Lord points out that he wanted us to consider a lot which really shows what the fall had done it really shows what had happened to human nature but it's interesting when you look in general at the sin of murder when you look at what the sixth commandment is forbidding the scriptures do and present a very careful and thinking of how the New Testament presents this, that they link that particular sin to that of the activity of Satan. Remember, the promise of Genesis 3 is that one day God would have a champion that would come. One day God would send his son that would come, and he would destroy the work of the devil. And from that point on, it was always the devil's purpose throughout history to murder the seed. always his purpose, so that Jesus could look directly at the activity of the Pharisees in his day and apply that very thing to them as belonging to the activity, he would say, of their father, the devil. Remember that? Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you can't hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. In other words, you want to murder me. And this proves that you want to do the desire of your father, the devil. He was a murderer. So he linked it together that the devil loved murder from the beginning. This was his great goal from the beginning. That's why this sin is captured right at the beginning after the fall it was this sin that ultimately would play itself out in history ultimately on the cross didn't it we'll get there so how does the new testament characterize this first scene of murder listen to jude but these speak evil of whatever they do not know and whatever they know naturally like brute beasts and these things they corrupt themselves woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain. If I weren't doing titles tonight of the commandments, you shall not murder, I would have had my title, the way of Cain. What is the way of Cain? The way of Cain is the way of envy and hatred of a brother that works itself out to the full consequence of murder with the hands. It's fascinating how the Lord diagnosed and addressed Cain's way as it began to take hold of his heart. You'll notice in verse 6 tonight that the Lord said to Cain, notice where the first thing the Lord raised, why are you angry? And why is your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Something overtook the heart. And there's a verse in the New Testament that we can implement very easily when it comes to what happened here. James described the path when he said, let no one say when he's tempted that I'm tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone, but each one is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. Well, isn't that just the path here? Isn't that just the path that the Lord is raising in Cain's heart? And so it's this pattern that begins to develop in his heart that this desire has conceived and it's given birth to sin and it works its way all the way out to death. It's interesting that the first thing that the Lord said happened to Cain was, now stay with me, you'll see how alive and well this is in our own hearts. His countenance fell. You ever fallen out of favor with somebody? Do you know what that is? Or has somebody ever fallen out of favor with you? Have you ever taken favor from somebody? What does that look like? Sure you have. Maybe going on now. You would have at one time greeted them. You would have at one time had them over to your home. You would have at one time loved them. You would have welcomed them. You would have invited them to your house for lunch. You would have smiled when you saw them. You would have greeted them with some amount of warmth and affection. Something happened. Something happened. I could give you a million scenarios right now. Something happened, and then what? The disposition changed, didn't it? The favor of kindness or the pleasantness begins to descend into frustration, and that frustration is then entertained to the point of anger, and now sin has broken out into from the heart. There can be a variety of reasons for this, of course. Here with Cain, it was particularly and interestingly jealousy wasn't it it's interesting what the heidelberg picks up in this when it says that god teaches us that he hates the root of murder and here's the list it gives when it gets to the root envy hatred anger vindictiveness interesting you could probably put all the categories there of things that where it all starts where somebody falls out of favor i heard of just this last week a pastor i was talking with one of his parishioners did not receive mention on a project that they had worked so hard on and this had so offended the person that anger began to build and to build and to build and that bitterness began to so work its way out that now she has moved to do anything possible that she can to assault the credibility of the person that didn't give her acknowledgement. Stuff goes on all the time. When somebody's countenance falls, it usually is demonstrated in a passive way when the root of bitterness begins to take over until it moves their heart to some kind of action. Things don't stay where they are. They never do. Think of Esau. It was Esau himself who, when Jacob had done the terrible things that he had done to Esau, the scripture comes along and especially in the book of Hebrews gives a great admonishment seeing see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble by it be many become defiled there's a root of bitterness that begins to take over the heart and that's what the Lord brings to the forefront he addresses it right at the inception cain your countenance has fallen i see it well god had accepted abel's sacrifice and not his and there was from that heart already proceeding jealousy and rage over this particular issue and the lord then admonishes cain and and really putting on display for us the anatomy of the heart in sin now um the anatomy of what's going on and explaining for us the problem of the human heart after the fall where he says why are you angry and why is your face fallen if you do well will you not be accepted and if you do not do well here's what's going on Cain sin is crouching at your door and his desire is for you but you must rule over it what an amazing explanation of the Lord, inside Cain's heart, describing the very thing that is going on. If you do right, will you not be accepted? It's a probing question. Anger, Cain, has overtaken you. Your countenance has fallen, and that now has produced an inability, and you think about all the things that then flow, the inability, even if your brother had sinned against you, to treat him kindly and fairly. Cain, the problem's not able. The problem is not able. If you choose the right path, you won't face the kind of thing that you're facing right now. What are you facing right now, Cain? You know it. Look what sin is doing to you. It's ruining you. It's lying at your door. And its desire is for you. Now you say, well, which side of the door is it on? Well, you know, wasn't it Jesus that said out of the heart proceeds murder, adulteries, fornications, thefts? It's right on the inside now, and it's ready to lash out, and he describes it as if it's some kind of snake, which is clearly something he's dealing with, or a lion, right out of the fall. It's ready to strike. Sometimes when parents have to discipline, when parents have to talk to their children, and you say don't do that or you need to get in there and do that clean the kitchen and you can see that countenance fall you can see that countenance drop and you can start to already tell something's going on on the inside and the lord is showing us here and dissecting the real problem isn't he i don't want to downplay how serious the danger of all this is i read something long ago and knowing my own heart, knowing what I'm prone to, but also reading this, I thought it might help you tonight to understand that this is playing with fire. Here's what this book described of what happens to a woman when the root of anger ends up controlling her life. This is a woman writing about, describing what she knew as a pastor. She's a pastor's wife describing what she saw in the ministry she states she noticed in church life that often women by the time they reach their 40th year if this anger has been set deeply within their heart something happens they've spent years of their life irritated at their husbands daily feeling hurt and responding with cold and bitterness instead of being thankful they begin to practice the bitterness. Practicing, always practicing, perfecting bitterness and discontentment. In the course of time, edginess grows and she can realize she can no longer control it. One day she snaps. She loses control, screaming like a crazy woman and calling her loved ones terrible names. She'll say it's just a bad hormone day, but the family will wonder. The family learns to tolerate these blow-ups and she keeps on practicing, practicing. Expects the family to appease her and is offended when they act like everything's just fine. First, she's mad at her husband. Years past, she's mad at the family. As time goes, she's mad at the church. Then she's mad at the mailman. Then she's mad at the waitress, practicing, always practicing, perfecting madness mad. I don't have to give that just to women. All of us can have that overtake when there's offense. This is what's going on in the heart of Cain. It's dominion. Sin was at Cain's door desiring him. And personified here as if it's a snake. The power of sin. The deceitfulness of sin. And that's the issue that God brings to the forefront. That even before the murder, even before Cain had killed Abel, something was going on. And that's the seriousness of the matter. that when someone hates his brother or picks up a rod to kill him, that that is the end of a long process when we're talking murder one of something that has been working out a long time. This is how Jesus dealt with it. The Pharisees would look at the commandment, thou shall not murder, and think, well, I never took a baseball bat to anyone. And Jesus would say, you've heard that it was said of old. You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment wow just anger without a cause now you see why when we're looking at the law in its first use and full weight how are you feeling right now i mean this is this is heavy i wonder if people hear jesus anymore and his teachings on this particular commandment how often do people get angry and say i can't stand that person or i'll never forgive that person or i hate that person or refuse to talk to that person or despise that person you may never go to the next step and actually take a baseball bat to them but jesus says to be angry without cause is to be in danger of the judgment do we hear that that should put us all on our knees should make us go to him and say lord forgive me i'm a murderer and this is why jesus gave really important little parables saying go quickly make it right with your adversary while you're along the way lest he deliver you over and you go to prison and you won't get out of there till you paid the last penny he's saying do it now william hendrickson said jesus is teaching us one lesson a very important one that sinful anger the kind that leads to bitter words is in its very nature murder it's murder committed in the heart unless the someone repents the person with this kind of attitude faces punishment and hell everlasting whatever he may be inhumanized before god he stands condemned and is on his way to never-ending death thus while the scribes and the pharisees placed the emphasis on the outward deed and as if that alone were reprehensible, Jesus traced the deed to the underlying evil disposition of the heart. And that, beloved, is the way of Cain. That's the way of Cain. That's what we see society filled with. That's what you're seeing in the political process right now. This is what we see come out of our own hearts. The ultimate desire of hating our neighbor. And then you think of the great summary of the command which we heard this morning, which you shall, the whole law is fulfilled in one word, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Even if Abel had offended Cain, shouldn't Cain have gone to him? Even if Abel had done something wrong, shouldn't he have said and gone to his brother as Jesus taught it? Well, that's just what happens when anger ruminates in the heart. And it's terribly sad what follows in the narrative that that anger grew so much that in verse 8, it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up. And notice the emphasis. Killed him. Stamped out his life. When the Lord questions him, you get the awful response, Am I my brother's keeper? Am I my brother's keeper? Cain's heart was so hard, the audacity to lash out at God as if he had no responsibility to love his brother. To love his brother. And when God calls Cain to the carpet for his sin, he says something very powerful. Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Our heart should be a place where we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourself. And this is the great problem this command has exposed. This commandment has shown us the heart. So that in 1 John 3 we read, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brothers were righteous. Don't marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. It says this. We know that we have passed from death to life. This is the pastoral encouragement. Because we love the brother. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know no murderer has eternal life in him. And that's the center point here tonight. That notice John says if you hate, you're a murderer. And anger, as Ecclesiastes has always said, rests in the bosom of fools. So tonight I say, and you should say what? I'm a murderer. I'm a murderer. He said, no, I really am not that bad. And then in the very first sermon at Pentecost, Peter comes along and says, every single one of you, every single one of you, murder, crucify the Lord of glory because it was your sins that did that. And what was his next phrase? What was his next call? So repent and receive forgiveness. The announcement was made to murderers that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. So this now gives us an understanding of why, and especially as our Heidelberg outlines tonight, Now the new path forward is so different for the believer. Knowing that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, knowing that kind of love when we treated him that way, now we know that the new forgiven way is to forgive and to love our brother every time he offends us, 70 times 7. That many times. To go the distance, not just with our brethren, but with even our enemies. Even those who have offended us the most. That's what freedom in Christ has set us free to do now. And that's why John says we know that we've passed from death to life because now we've been given this ability to do what is so contrary to the old nature. We've been given this ability to love. And I see it in you. I see it here. I see it in the body of Christ. And John wants you to know that's evidence of forgiveness. That's evidence of grace. You know the love of Christ has been poured out in your hearts. He says it's going to drive you now to lay down your life for your brethren. And that's why the Heidelberg says in this final question, is it enough then that we don't kill our neighbor? No. Listen to what the positive dimension of this is. By condemning envy, hatred, and anger, God tells us, positive dimension of this, to love our neighbor as ourselves. To be patient. how patient has God been with you to be peace-loving the old natural ways to love a good fight to be gentle to be merciful haven't you known mercy show it and friendly to your neighbor friendliness matters to protect him from harm as much as you can don't even want to listen to somebody trash his name and to do good even to our enemies that's that's the new way of the forgiven life that's the christian life not the way of cain but the way of christ i mean that's what we could call it the way of christ and what is that way well it's captured in first peter for when we do good and suffer and endure it's a gracious thing in the sight of god for to this you've been called because christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps he committed no sin neither was deceit found in his mouth when he was reviled he didn't revile in return when he suffered he didn't threaten he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you've been healed so that the love of God now has been poured out in your hearts, right? So that no longer is it crouching at your door ready to strike, but that now by His power the Lord gives you much grace and strength to love your brethren. Christ is the one who taught us to lay down our lives and instead of taking the lives of our neighbors to give our life to them. Think about that. Instead of taking the life of our neighbor to give our life in doing this, we do well in honoring the intention of God in the sixth commandment. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you address and confront us in areas that we need to. And we all confess, Lord, that we are murderers. Murderers with that deep-rooted problem in the heart. And had the gospel not come to us, had the good news not been preached to us, had we not understand the marvelous love of Christ who died for us while we were yet sinners, well, this would have such mastery over us and we would be hating and biting and devouring. And yet now the love of Christ constrains and helps and guides and shows us the right way by your grace, teaching us now to love one another fervently with a pure heart. You call us to that. So forgive us. Help us, Lord, if we have any frustrations or anger over taking us toward a brother or sister to knock the nonsense off as Christians and remember what we've been saved to, who we've been saved by, and who we belong to, purchased by the blood and righteousness of Jesus who gave himself while we were enemies and provoking and hating. Thank you, Lord, for teaching us and instructing us your way is always the right way. May we live out our lives in gratitude, thankful that you've forgiven murderers just like us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.