Proverbs 6:16-17; Deuteronomy 19:9-10; Matthew 5:21-22; John 8:44; Luke 10:29-36.
This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 5, 2021.
Today, we are going to look at the third thing in the list of seven things that God hates. The emphasis moves down to our hands. There are many sins that we do with our hands. However, the Spirit emphasizes hands that shed innocent blood. This is a way of emphasizing murder versus capital punishment.
So, what is meant by innocent blood? The point in this phrase is that they are not guilty of anything that deserves death at the hands of society. It is not saying that they have no sin.
Another point to be aware of is this. It is easy to be confused between the laws of a country and the Law of God that is made clear in the Bible. The taking of a life of someone who does not deserve it will always be hated by God, even when the society declares it legal. Rome had no problem killing innocents in their Colosseum in order to keep the populace entertained and distracted. Many places in the world have no problem killing innocents because they follow a different religion. Even in these united States, we have no problem killing innocents in the womb because their presence is an inconvenience. Of course, to assuage our conscience, we they are treated as not being a full person yet. Sound familiar? Such arguments were used by some to support slavery 200 years ago.
Don’t kid yourself. When you stand before God, you will not be able to use the excuse that it was legal where you lived. God’s Word stands above all nations, and this Republic, and holds us accountable to the truth about God and His Law.
Exodus 20:13 is the sixth commandment that God gave to Moses. “You shall not murder.” Yes, we are no longer under the Law of Moses. Yet, murder was wrong before the Law of Moses (God held Cain accountable to his murder of Abel). In the New Testament, we are reminded that murder is still wrong in the era of the Everlasting Covenant. Why? It is wrong because God still hates it, and it represents a rejection of the Truth of Christ. The Law of Moses is filled with laws that were intended to teach symbolic truths such as the laws on sacrifice and the dietary laws. However, the moral laws were not symbolic. Early Christians understood that these things were still sin and God did not want people of any era participating in it.
It has become common place for our larger cities to see over a hundred murders a year, with places like Chicago leading the pack with over 1 murder a day. Our systems do not keep track of the innocent who were murdered, and even if we did, they would not put the abortion numbers in it. How enlightened we must be that we have legalized murder at the hands of some of the doctors in our land. Around a million innocents a year have their blood shed in the united States of America. Yes, the Taliban in Afghanistan are even now going door to door to kill collaborators and Christians. This may seem repugnant to our delicate Western sensibilities, but God is just as repulsed by our clinical slaughter of babies in the womb. You shall not shed the blood of the innocent!
Even though we are not under the Law of Moses, a study of it can help us to understand how God thinks on these matters. For instance, take the cities of refuge talked about in Deuteronomy 19. God is making provision for a person who accidentally kills another person (innocent blood). He does this by having Israel set apart three cities to be a place of refuge for such a person. He even tells them to add three more as they expand. The point is not the system, but the intent that God had in setting it up.
Not all deaths are intentional. Though it is bad to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it, it is also bad to kill the person who accidentally killed another. By the way, the cities of refuge were never used as a sanctuary for murderers, law breakers. The leaders of the city were to hear both sides of the event and any witnesses that were available. If there was enough evidence to make it clear that the death was intentional, then they were to be handed over to their executioner. There can be no sanctuary for a murderer, but the sanctuary of true repentance and faith in Jesus. Our Republic has done a fairly good job in making a system that protects in the cases of manslaughter, though any system can be abused.
In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus raises the bar for murder. If God hates murder, then He hates the junk that goes on in a heart that leads to it. No society can hold people accountable for the things that are listed in this passage: being angry at someone without a proper cause, calling someone an “idiot” (literally “empty-head”), and calling someone a fool (as an insult). Yet, God will hold us accountable to these things. He hates these things. Jesus reminds us that to think and act in these ways towards another person is to be in danger of hell. Like Jesus told the “Sons of Thunder,” you do not know what manner of spirit you are. God is trying to save people from their sins, not execute them for them. However, the rebellious will eventually be dealt with by Him.
A Christian doesn’t need to be against capital punishment, but they do need to have a heart that has given up anger, hatred, and despising others for their sins. A Christian is a person who has repented of doing things that God hates, and who seeks to become like God, like Jesus, which raises this question.
What image am I taking on? When Cain killed Abel, 1 John 3:12 tells us that he was “of the wicked one.” Cain had been warned by his Heavenly Father (God). God was trying to help him overcome the temptation to sin, but Cain didn’t want to be like God. He didn’t know it, but in refusing to become like God, he then became like someone else, the wicked one, aka the devil. According to the Bible, Cain was not the first murderer.
John 8:44 tells us that the devil was a murderer “from the beginning.” Who did he murder? There may be more behind this verse than we know, since Jesus has knowledge that we do not and may be sending a message to the devil through it. However, Genesis 3 lays out the classical act of talking someone into killing themselves. We cannot blame our sin upon Satan, but his heart was the heart of a murderer when he tempted Eve to disobey God. He is guilty of the death of innocent blood when he took advantage of their naivety.
I am either a child of God becoming more like Him each day, or I am a child of the devil, expressing one more novel way of becoming like the wicked one. Thus, Jesus brought to the surface the real image that the religious leaders of his day had been taking on. They didn’t believe that they were killers any more than our society today thinks that we are enlightened and righteous, more righteous than God Himself. If Jesus were to step into my life, and I didn’t know it was him, would I hate him for revealing my sin? Would I despise him and malign him to others behind his back? Would I openly attack him? Would I have the heart of a murderer towards him? We duck these questions in this life because the people who may confront us are humans who are fallen too. Lord, help us to be more aware of the image that we are taking on, and through repentance, keep near to God.
Let’s take some time to focus on what God loves. Instead of hands that shed innocent blood, we should have hands that help and heal others. To show this, let’s look at the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-36.
The Good Samaritan had compassion upon an enemy. The story is not ultimately about having compassion. Most people are capable of compassion when they want to be. However, those who were most likely to help this Jewish man along the road, a priest and a Levite, chose not to help. We don’t know what their rationalizations look like. Perhaps they speculated that it was a trick. Maybe they just didn’t want to be inconvenienced or made late for the temple service. For some reason, they both ignored the man’s dire situation.
Jesus makes the hero of the story a person that Jews despised, a Samaritan. To be fair, there was much despising coming from the direction of the Samaritans also. This “half-breed” follower of a religious cult was the one who stopped and had compassion on the dying Jewish man. I know the story doesn’t exactly say the man is Jewish, but it is most likely since the man had gone “down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” The people hearing the story that day would have understood him to be a Jew that was helped by a Samaritan. This would be like a BLM protester finding a wounded cop and helping him, or the reverse, a cop finding a wounded BLM protester and helping him.
Just because someone is my enemy doesn’t mean that I should desire their death. The good Samaritan is good because he did what God would do. He did all he could do to save the dying person. He had compassion. The reason I said this isn’t about compassion is because it is ultimately about who we are imaging in our actions. Many priests and Levites in Jerusalem of the days of Jesus lacked far more than compassion. They lacked the image of God.
We are told some very practical things that the Samaritan did to help the man. He treated his wounds with the equivalent of antiseptic and salve. He bandaged the wounds. He then took the man to a safe place where he would not be harmed further, and where he could recuperate. This couldn’t guarantee that the man would live, but it would give him the best chance. The rest would be up to God. He even paid for the cost of the man’s convalescence. This man was more than a neighbor. He was more than a good neighbor. He was a godly neighbor, the hand of God to a man in need.
Think about it. This Samaritan, if he was religious at all, would have had some twisted doctrines. No self-respecting Jew of that day would want a Samaritan living by them. Rather, they would want good Jewish neighbors, especially a Levite or a priest. Maybe some of their blessing will land on me! However, this Samaritan was the better neighbor of the three, a better lover of his neighbors. His hands were not quick to shed blood, or to allow it to happen, but quite the opposite. They were quick to help and to heal.
So, what can I do? Notice that this story is not about a Samaritan who purposefully walked the road looking for robbed travelers. It was a chance (or was it) meeting that gave him no time to prepare. This is life. Tests and choices that come our way that we were not expecting.
What can I do? It starts with quick repentance when hard-heartedness surfaces in me. I must develop the image of God within my life through choosing to help others, spiritually and physically. The sad thing is that they won’t always want your help, and may even reject it. How more like God can you get than that? His help is spurned every day by hundreds of millions of people.
Friend, the spirit of this world is stirring us up against one another, to despise, and not love one another, but the Spirit of Christ is here this morning to teach us to love one another, even when it hurts.