you
Good morning everyone welcome to our services this morning here at faithful word baptism shirts very good see you all here
For our Sunday morning service find your seats, please and take a song book go to him number 56 to get started this morning him number 56
When we all get to heaven him number 56
We'll sing it out nice and strong starting on that first 56
Him number 56 sing the wondrous love of Jesus him number 56 lift her voice together now
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his praise.
In the mentioned bride and blessing, he'll prepare for us a place that we are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Thank you for allowing us to be gathered here this morning and pray that you would bless
this singing and fill Pastor Anderson with the power of your Holy Spirit as he preaches
to us later.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
That's him number 43.
Number 43.
We're marching to Zion.
Him number 43.
Number 43 begins come we that love the Lord and let our joys be known. That means you got to sing it out with me this morning number 43
Him number 43 sing it out now
Stay with me
エンディング
All right, at this time,
we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
We have our service time Sunday mornings at 10 30
is our preaching service Sunday nights at six Wednesday nights
at seven is our Bible study.
This week we will be in second Chronicles chapter 34.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below
as well as salvations and baptisms across the page
are the birthdays and anniversaries
for the month of February.
And then on the back, we've got the list of expectant ladies.
Please pray for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
We've got a baby shower today.
All ladies and teenage girls are invited to attend.
We'd rather that you leave the kids at home, but nurselings are okay.
And food will be provided.
And so again, that's a two o'clock.
Don't be shy if you don't know Lola.
because again all ladies and girls are invited to do these things and so we'd
love for you to show up and just enjoy some fellowship meet some new people
Other upcoming events, February 19th.
We've got Pastor Jonathan Shelly preaching here
on Wednesday night.
Then next month, March 12th,
we've got Pastor Corbin Russell preaching here as well.
So those are some special Wednesday nights.
Mark the calendar for those.
And then of course,
we've got the mission strip coming up in March.
That is about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, you should find the answer
in the front of your hymnal with Psalm 126.
If you don't have an answer, please raise your hand.
You'll receive one.
And we'll sing it on that verse together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Psalm 126.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
We were like that, that dream.
Then it's a day, a month, a year, then The Lord hath done great things for them
And the Lord hath done great things for us Whereup we are glad
Turn again our contivity, O Lord As He streams in the sound
Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them,
The Lord hath done great things for us, Whereof we are glad.
He that goeth forth and we fed, Bearing precious seed,
Shout out, let's come again, Shout out, let's come again with rejoicing,
That's the day of unbelieving
The Lord hath done great things for them
The Lord hath done great things for us
Whereof we are glad
Man, good singing everybody.
Go to hymn number 441.
Your song looks now in number 441.
Keep up the good singing.
We'll sing Greatest Thy Faithfulness.
Hymn number 441.
441 greatest I faithfulness. Oh God my father him number 441 lift it up now
All right, at this time we'll quickly pass
our offering plates as the plates go around.
Let's turn in our Bibles to Numbers chapter 35.
Numbers chapter 35, as we always do,
read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Numbers chapter 35, follow along silently
with Brother Corbin Brock as he reads,
Numbers chapter 35.
And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,
Command the children of Israel that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance
of their possession, cities to dwell in, and ye shall give also unto the Levites
suburbs for the cities round about them. And the cities shall they have to dwell in,
and the suburbs of them shall be for their cattle and for their goods and for all their beasts.
And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall reach
outward a thousand cubits round about and you shall measure from without the
city on the east side 2,000 cubits and on the south side 2,000 cubits and on the
west side 2,000 cubits and on the north side 2,000 cubits and the city shall be
in the midst this shall be to them the suburbs of the cities
And among the cities which ye shall give unto the Levites, there shall be six cities for refuge,
which ye shall appoint for the manslayer, that he may flee thither, and to them ye shall add forty and two cities.
So all the cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty and eight cities, them shall ye give with their suburbs,
and the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel,
from them that have many ye shall give many, but from them that have few ye shall give few.
Every one shall give of his cities unto the Levites according to his inheritance which he
inherited." And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them,
Then ye shall appoint ye cities to be cities of refuge for you that the slayer may flee
thither which killeth any person at unawares.
And they shall be unto you cities for refuge from the avenger that the manslayer die not
until ye stand before the congregation in judgment.
You shall give three cities on this side, Jordan, and three cities shall you give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.
These six cities shall be a refuge both for the children of Israel and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them,
that everyone that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.
And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer.
The murderer shall surely be put to death.
And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die and he die, he is a murderer.
The murderer shall surely be put to death.
Or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die and he die, he is a murderer, the murderer shall be put to death.
The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer, when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.
But if he thrust him of hatred or hurl at him by laying of weight that he die,
or in enmity smite him with his hand that he die, he that smote him shall surely be put to death,
for he is a murderer. The revenger of blood shall slay the murderer when he meeteth him.
But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity, or have cast upon him anything without laying of weight,
or with any stone wherewith a man may die, seeing him not, and cast it upon him that he die,
and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the slayer
and the revenger of blood according to these judgments.
and the congregation shall deliver the slayer out of the hand of the Revenger of Blood,
and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge, whether he was fled,
and he shall abide in it until the death of the high priest, which is anointed with the holy oil.
But if the slayer shall at any time come without the border of the city of his refuge, whether he was fled,
and the Revenger of Blood find him without the borders of the city of his refuge,
and the Revenger of Blood kill the slayer, he shall not be guilty of blood,
because he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the death of the high priest,
but after the death of the high priest, the slayer shall return into the land of his possession.
So, these things shall be for a statute of judgment unto you throughout your generations
in all your dwellings.
Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses.
But one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.
Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of
death, but he shall surely be put to death.
And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of refuge,
that he should come again to dwell in the land until the death of the priest.
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are,
for blood it defileeth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that
is shed therein,
but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land
which ye shall inhabit wherein I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among the children
of Israel.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this beautiful day you've given us.
We thank you that the word of God is true and that it endureth forever.
We ask now that you would bless
Pastor Anderson and give him wisdom and boldness to preach the word of God unto us and Lord may we have ready
ears to hear these things and may they sink deeply down into our ears.
We ask for your blessing now on all these things in Jesus name we pray amen.
Man this morning I'm preaching on the subject of murderers
And I'm continuing my series that I started last Sunday on Revelation 21-8.
Of course, Revelation 21-8 is one of my favorite verses to use out soul winning.
And of course, it says, but the fearful and the unbelieving, the abominable,
murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part
in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
And the reason that I use this verse out soul winning is because a lot of people think that you'll only go to hell if you've done something really bad like murder or sorcery.
But then if we look at some of the other things on that list, they are things that pretty much everybody has been guilty of.
at one time or another, right?
The fearful, being a coward, unbelieving.
We've all acted in a way that showed that we lacked faith
at one time or another.
And of course, all liars is pretty much the catch-all
that just gets everybody.
And so it's a verse that I use a lot out soul-winning.
I've been going soul-winning a lot lately and I had this verse just kind of drilled into my head from using it so much and so I decided to just do a series breaking down each item on the list and talking about them because obviously
Those of us who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior,
we are going to heaven because we've been forgiven of all these things, right?
So all our sins are forgiven and forgotten.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has God separated us from our sins.
We're born again. We have eternal life.
Nothing could separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But that being said, we still want to live in such a way
These are a list of things that brings God's wrath upon the unsaved to the point that he
would prepare a place for them in hell, then obviously we don't want to do these things
that are so repugnant in the eyes of God.
We don't want to be fearful, we don't want to be unbelieving, we don't want to be abominable,
and we certainly don't want to be murderers, okay?
So last Sunday morning I preached on the fearful, Sunday night I preached on the unbelieving,
in Oklahoma City and I took the series on the road and I preached on the abominable
because in the age of the internet it's pretty easy to get caught up
if you're that worried about which missing that abominable sermon
well you know it wasn't an abominable sermon but it was it was a sermon about the abominable
then you could go back and listen to that online
by the way we had a great service in Oklahoma City we had 132 people in attendance
And so it's exciting to be in that kind of a service.
And, you know, I believe that Pastor Dylan Oz is going to do great things in Oklahoma.
And so I'm looking forward to that.
But this morning, we're going to talk about murderers, right?
And this is one that you might just think, oh, I already know everything about this.
You know, don't kill people.
But, you know, there's a little more to it than that in the Bible.
And I think the Numbers chapter 35 is really the best chapter
to really delve into the specifics
of what constitutes murder, because.
Out of 43 times that the word murder or murderer is used in the Bible,
11 of them are in this one chapter.
This is the first mention in a King James Bible of the word murder.
Obviously, we know that Cain murdered Abel,
but as far as using the word murder,
number 35 is kind of the murder chapter, right?
And the first thing that you need to understand is that what the Bible considers murder
is what we would call in 2025 America,
first degree murder, right?
So when the Bible talks about murder,
it's talking about what we would specifically call
first degree murder.
And what does that mean?
It means that it's something that is premeditated,
purposeful, killing of another person.
Now, if you would look at verse 16 and we're going to look at the specifics of what constitutes
murder according to the Bible.
It says in verse number 16, if he smite him with an instrument of iron so that he die,
he is a murderer, the murderer shall be put to death, shall surely be put to death.
Verse 17, if he smite him with a throwing stone, right, and obviously the analogy for
this today would be shooting a gun, right, you're just throwing the stone a little bit
where with he may die, and he die, he's a murderer.
The murderer shall surely be put to death,
or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood,
where with he may die.
and he die, he is a murderer, the murderer shall surely be put to death."
Now, this may seem a little bit redundant to you, right?
Three verses in a row that are all specifically focusing on the implement that is used.
And I think that the idea here that the Word of God is trying to get across
is that if someone kills someone with their bare hands,
there's a pretty good chance that it wasn't premeditated.
or that it was an accident, right?
You hear about situations where someone just punches someone
or just shoves someone and accidentally kills that person.
Well, it's very likely that it was an accident,
but what the Bible is saying is if you come at someone
with a crowbar or a baseball bat
or a knife or something like that and you kill them
and then, oh, whoops, didn't mean to kill them.
You know what that's unlikely because you're assaulting them with what a deadly weapon and a lot of these ideas that we have in our modern
Jurisprudence come from the Bible and they come from scripture
unfortunately
We don't follow scripture as well as we should
in our justice system,
but there are a lot of things that have still
made their way into our justice system.
And so assault with a deadly weapon
is what we're talking about here.
If you're using a baseball bat,
if you're using a crowbar,
if you're beating someone with something
or hurling a projectile at them,
then you should understand that
that is assault with a deadly weapon.
And if you kill someone doing that,
then that is murder, okay?
Look at verse number 19.
It says, the revenger of blood shall himself slay the murderer when he meeteth him.
He shall slay him.
Now the idea here is that the murderer, according to scripture, the person who is guilty of
first degree murder, automatically gets the death penalty.
There is no other punishment that is allowed.
There's no decision where we go and we have a sentencing hearing
and we decide what the punishment is.
Only one punishment is acceptable for the murderer
and that punishment is death,
which is why there's no hearing needed.
The murderer, as soon as the Revenger of Blood finds him,
he just kills him.
He just kills him and speedily brings justice
to the Revenger of Blood.
Look at verse number 20, by the Revenger of Blood,
I should say.
Verse 20, it says,
The revenger of blood shall slay the murderer when he meet him."
Now, this particular scripture is emphasizing the premeditation aspect of murder in the Bible,
and notice that he is smiting him because of enmity. He's doing it in enmity, right?
In verse 20 it says, he thrusts him of hatred. So what are we seeing with the hatred and the enmity?
A motive.
to kill, right? And then it says that he lies in wait for him.
That's the premeditation. And so we can see these elements are there.
Premeditation, a motive,
and killing that person, it could be considered murder even if it's done with
the bare hands,
but if it's done with a weapon, that even speaks more to the fact that it was
premeditated and intent to kill was there.
And so that's what the Bible is saying. So,
Murder, first three murder, requires premeditation and or a motive, according to the Bible.
Look at verse 22.
It says,
But if he thrust him suddenly without enmity…
So this is what we would call second-degree murder, right?
Because first-degree murder is premeditated,
you have a motive going in, you plan it.
Whereas second-degree murder is what we would call a crime of passion
where someone just kind of loses it in the moment
and just kills someone on the spur of the moment because they lost their temper.
And so that's what it means when it says he thrust him suddenly,
meaning, you know, spur of the moment, not lying in wait, didn't hate him in the past.
Suddenly, without enmity, or have cast upon him anything
without laying of weight, or with any stone where with a man may die,
seeing him not and cast it upon him.
Now we're talking about accidentally killing someone, right?
You know, you throw a rock and, oh, I didn't see that you were standing
where I was about to throw that rock,
and cast it upon him that he die, and was not his enemy, no motive, right?
Neither sought his harm, then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood according to these judgments."
So what the Bible is saying is that there could be crimes of passion, second-degree murder.
Those things need to be dealt with in a court of law, and you have to adjudicate those things and figure out,
okay, what's going on here? Was this on purpose?
was this an accident, what's going to be the punishment,
and so forth, whereas first degree murder
is a foregone conclusion, death penalty.
No trial needed, anybody who is guilty of this is just put to death immediately, okay?
Whereas second-degree murder or the accidental killing of someone through negligence, we would call that manslaughter, right?
So what are some examples of manslaughter in our modern world?
For example, let's say you get in the car and you're driving a hundred miles an hour down the freeway.
You're not supposed to be driving a hundred miles an hour down the freeway.
You're breaking the law.
You're being irresponsible.
You're being reckless.
You're being negligent.
And then let's say you just accidentally kill someone.
That's not murder because you didn't go out and set out to kill someone.
It's not even second-degree murder because you didn't just in the moment say,
I'm going to kill somebody right now.
But rather, you were doing something wrong.
and you killed someone accidentally,
but you're guilty because you were doing something wrong,
you were going 100 miles an hour.
Okay, now let's say you're driving down the road
and you're following the speed limit,
you're doing everything right
and somebody jumps in front of your car,
that's not manslaughter,
because you weren't doing anything wrong.
You're just going about your business, you're driving,
and then that person died, that's just called an accident.
You know, and if you're doing everything right, people can still accidentally get killed.
These things happen, you're not guilty.
What are some other examples?
Well, let's say...
You know, you're just being
reckless, let's say you drink alcohol or something and then you go operate machinery
while you're drunk and then you have some industrial accident and kill someone, right?
Again, that's manslaughter because you're operating the machine drunk. Whereas if you were following the rules,
operating the machine, doing what you're supposed to do, somebody gets killed, that's just an accident.
Does everybody see the difference?
But the idea here is that you have human beings,
you have judges that are supposed to think about these things,
figure things out according to all these judgments.
So they've read the Bible,
they know what the Word of God says about right and wrong,
and then they can sit down and think about these things
and decide what's going on in a given situation.
Okay.
But when it comes to first degree murder,
we're not supposed to sit around and think about,
you know, how to handle it.
you just kill the guy.
That's just what the Bible says.
Does everybody understand the difference?
Whereas there are other things that are gray areas.
And this is why it's important that our justice system
does have a human being sitting as a judge,
human beings in the jury, to be able to
you know, figure out these kind of gray areas and decide what's right and wrong in a given
situation according to biblical principles.
Because let's face it, the Bible does not spell out every exact situation that you're
ever going to run into in your life.
And so the idea is that you take the biblical principles that you learn from the examples
that are given, and then you apply those to the things that are not mentioned.
Okay, and this goes for all areas of Bible study.
Let's say you want to know what God thinks about marijuana or cocaine or heroin.
You know, you're doing a Bible search and you're typing in heroin.
Zero hits, you know?
Cocaine, zero hits.
I guess God just has no opinion, Christian liberty.
No, the idea here is that you look at what God says about alcohol.
And then you extrapolate that out and say,
well, this is what God is saying about alcohol,
other mind-altering chemicals and substances
are going to be in that same category.
And so whatever he's saying about alcohol
should also be applied to the use of other drugs, okay?
And we can always extrapolate those things out
because God can't sit there and spell out.
every situation you're going to encounter in your life and so we're constantly in our lives making
decisions and so we need to make those decisions based upon biblical principles and the best way
to do this is to just eat, breathe and sleep this book you know and just really know the Bible
and if you're just living in the Bible and just meditating in God's Word day and night then when
you get hit with situations you can kind of think about them the way God approaches things and the
And so that's the idea here with second-degree murder and or manslaughter.
Okay, so let's go to verse 25. Let's keep moving through this passage.
It says in the congregation shall deliver the slayer
out of the hand of the Revenger of Blood.
and the congregation shall restore him to the city of refuge wither he was fled,
and he shall abide in it until the death of the high priest, which was anointed with the holy oil."
Now, there's a lot going on in this verse, but the idea here is that the revenge of blood
is some kind of a friend, family member, or just somebody who's interested in putting the murderer to death.
Now if he has committed first-degree murder then go right ahead and kill him and make things right
But in a situation where it's second-degree murder or manslaughter
Well, then we need to deliver
This guy out of the hand of the Revenger of Blood because we don't want the Revenger of Blood to be guilty of murder
If the Revenger of Blood kills an innocent person now he's a murderer
Whereas, if the Revenger of Blood kills someone who is guilty, then he is doing the work of God.
He is actually doing right, okay?
And so, the person who has committed second degree murder or manslaughter
has to go to a place called the City of Refuge.
So, God ordained that there would be these six different
cities of refuge in the land of Israel there would be three on the west side of the Jordan River and
Three on the east side of the Jordan River and the idea behind having six of them is that they're easy to get to because if
It's too far to get there
You know this bounty hunter is going to get you before you even get there and get safe and have a chance to state your case
And so the city of refuge is like a neutral ground where you know, you cannot be punished
for
murder, okay
And so if it's found that you did commit first to remurder,
then you're pulled out of the city of refuge and put to death.
But if you are, in fact, only guilty of second degree or manslaughter,
then you end up going to the city of refuge
and you have to stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest.
OK?
So how long is that?
That could be...
a month or a year or 10 years or 30 years.
It just depends on how long that sucker stays alive, you know?
And you don't know how long that's going to be, okay?
But you have to go there.
And obviously you say, well, I don't get it.
Why?
Obviously, a lot of these things, in addition to being practical,
they also have a spiritual significance, a symbolic significance, and so forth.
But they're also very practical and they also make a lot of sense.
You know, when the High Priest dies, it's just a way of society pushing a reset button
every however many years.
And obviously, it's not random or chance
because God is in control.
God can keep the high priest alive
or God can allow the high priest to die whenever he wants.
So whenever God wants to push that reset button,
it's gonna happen.
And the idea here is that, you know,
we're not just stack, you know,
just putting all these people away for life or something.
And the other thing is that the city of refuge
is much more humane than going to prison
because the city of refuge is the closest thing
to prison in the Bible.
There's no prison in the Bible.
And when I say no prison, I mean God in his law which is very detailed and gives lots
of crimes and lots of punishments.
God never prescribes anyone to go to prison for any reason.
Obviously, there are stories in the Bible where he then will put people in prison, Joseph's
in prison, Daniel's in prison, whatever.
That's not the point.
The point is that God never prescribed those things.
It's not part of his system.
God prescribed that people would be punished either by paying a fine, receiving a beating,
or in extreme cases being put to death for serious crimes.
prison in God's economy but it's much more humane than prison because it's
almost similar to being on house arrest or something right where you got the
ankle bracelet and can't leave your house except it's even better because
you're not even confined to your house because you have the run of the whole
city.
It'd be like, let's say, you know, let's just pick a random city and let's just say that the city of, you know, Flagstaff is a city of refuge or something, right?
And so, you know, I'm in Phoenix and, you know, I get mad and kill somebody or whatever, and I, you know, flee to Flagstaff to the city of refuge.
It's just like, hey, you can't leave the city limits of Flagstaff.
until the death of, you know, Donald Trump or something, right?
You know, I'm just trying to kind of help you wrap your mind around this.
He's not the high priest, folks.
Don't take it too literally, all right?
People are going to think it's like a Trump cult or something, you know?
There is kind of a Trump cult going on, but it's not really here.
And so...
The thing about that is that you know you could still function you could get a job you get a place to live
You know it's not necessarily convenient to upend your life and move to this other town
And here's the other thing about the city of refuse. It's not only fugitives that are living there
There are a lot of normal people living there, too.
So there's normal people living there and fugitives,
and you can have a life there.
It's inconvenient, but at least you're there.
People know where you are.
They're kind of keeping an eye on you and whatever,
and you can live that down and so forth.
You know, it's not prison at all.
It's a better system, okay?
And you say, well, you know, the Bible's barbaric,
beating people's barbaric, but I can turn around
and just say that locking someone in a cage is barbaric.
And I guarantee you that if we went to the prison and did a questionnaire, who wants to receive a beating and get out of jail,
virtually everyone would take the caning or the whipping or the beating and be released from prison rather than be locked up.
I mean, if I had a choice right now to get a severe beating.
Like you know and not something that obviously is breaking your bones and stuff
The whole point of it was to be flogged or to be caned and yeah, it's going to be bloody
It's going to be bruises. It's going to be excruciating
It's going to you know hurt for days and weeks afterward, but then it's over
At least you don't have to lose years of your life and and be around a bunch of skeevy people in prison and so forth
And so the law of the Lord's perfect, you know, whether it's a beating, paying a fine,
exiled to the city of refuge temporarily, whatever, this is a superior system to our system.
Now look at verse 26. It says,
But if the slayer, and this is the person who has committed either second-degree murder or manslaughter,
If the slayer at any time come without the border of the city of his refuge whether he was fled and the revenge of blood find him without the borders of the city of his refuge and the revenge of blood kill the slayer, he should not be guilty of blood because he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the death of the high priest.
But after the death of the high priest, the slayer shall return into the land of his possession.
So these things shall be for a statute of judgment unto you throughout your generations.
in all your dwellings.
Now in verse 30, we have just one brief verse
about the standard of evidence for murder, right?
It says in verse 30,
who so killeth any person,
the murderer shall be put to death
by the mouth of witnesses, right?
So there has to be evidence,
there has to be witnesses.
One witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.
So you have to have two or three witnesses. One witness is not enough.
And I do think that in today's world, besides just witnesses, you could also count other things as witnesses,
like you could count something like DNA or, you know, surveillance footage or whatever.
And, you know, if you have multiple pieces of those evidence and, and, and...
They're guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then obviously they would be put to death.
In the ancient world, it's mainly going to be eyewitness testimony because they didn't
have the forensic laboratories that we have right now.
Obviously times change, and so you have to take the principles of the Bible and sort
of adapt them to our modern society.
Then it says in verse number 31, it says,
moreover, you shall take no satisfaction for the life
of a murderer, which is guilty of death,
but he shall surely be put to death.
Now, what does satisfaction mean?
In this context, what we're talking about with satisfaction
is that you could pay money to get yourself off the hook, right?
So like, let's say that I murdered someone,
And I'm supposed to be put to death, but I say, you know what?
Instead, I'm just going to give a quarter million dollars to the family and then like,
I'm going to give you guys a quarter million dollars.
You're not going to press charges and we can just sort of forget about the whole thing.
You know, right?
The Bible is saying, no, you can't do this.
In other situations sometimes paying someone can make things right, you know
If you've if you've done some kind of damage to them if you've you know done things like
You know fornication, you know possibly even adultery or something, you know and and you might think like okay
You know, but then what does the Bible say about adultery and Proverbs like he doesn't he doesn't want your money
He's just mad and wants you dead, right? That's a paraphrase, but that's from I think
what, proverbs chapter five or so forth,
somewhere around that neighborhood of proverbs, right?
That, you know, yeah, nobody's gonna want
to take a satisfaction for that either.
But the point is, you know, you break someone's stuff,
you hurt someone, you cause them to lose a limb
or something, you might pay them a payout, right?
People, it's like all these billboards you see everywhere.
Oh, you got an accident and you get this $300,000
because you hurt your leg or hurt your arm or whatever.
Right, in a lot of situations, you know, money can make
you feel better about a lot of bad things
But what the Bible is prohibiting here is taking satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death.
So there's no paying of a fine or paying a settlement and saying look I got lots of money
So here's a million dollars shut up and don't worry about it. That's not going to work
The Bible says no the murderer must be put to death. That's why it finishes with the statement
He shall surely be put to death
Don't take a satisfaction for the life of murderers guilty of death. Don't take that
Satisfaction what does satisfaction mean? You know like oh well this will satisfy the requirements of the law
God saying only the blood of the murderer will satisfy justice and nothing else will
satisfy justice.
And then he also says this in verse 32,
you shall take no satisfaction for him that has fled to the city of his refuge,
that he should come again to dwell in the land until the death of the high priest.
So he's saying you also cannot pay to get out of the city of refuge early.
You know, even if you did second degree murder or manslaughter,
you have to stay in that city of refuge until the death of the High Priest.
And you cannot pay money to get out.
There's no get out of jail free card when it comes to killing someone.
Now, the next thing I want you to see in these next few verses are that
you know, allowing murder to go unpunished
pollutes an entire nation.
It pollutes an entire area,
it pollutes the land.
And it isn't kind or merciful
for you to just allow murder to happen unpunished in the land.
it will ultimately cause the entire land to be cursed.
And so this is not you being kind or good or benevolent
to be soft on crime and to let crime run rampant.
And today, a lot of times liberals
will have this view of being soft on crime
and just sort of turning a blind eye to crime.
And then you'll have these little cute statements
that come along from people that are burning in hell
like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Okay?
Who will say things like this? Oh, I for an eye leaves the whole world blind
You know first of all that's an attack on God's word
It's a mockery of God's word because I for an eye is a direct quote from God
It's a direct quote from the Bible
So I for an eye leaves the whole world, but this is the logic and if you've ever talked to people who are against the death penalty
This is the stupid logic that they'll use though. This is what they'll say
They'll say well, and I've had many conversations throughout my life with people who are against the death penalty
And you'll talk to them and you'll say well look, you know
Somebody commits murder they have to be put to death here's what the Bible says and here's what they'll say
They'll say well, yeah, but here's the problem with that is that now the executioner has to kill them
Now he just committed murder
And then we have to kill the executioner, and then whoever killed him has to kill him.
And it's just this never-ending cycle that everybody dies.
This is foolish because the Bible is crystal clear that the executioner is not a murderer.
The executioner, the Bible says, is a minister of God.
It literally says in Romans chapter 13,
he is the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
The person who puts to death the guilty criminal,
the guilty person who has committed a crime worthy of death
is doing the Lord's work.
That's what the Bible says.
So no, it is not, you know,
an eye for an eye leaving the whole world blind.
No, no, basically, you knock out someone's eye,
We put out your eye and that's it. It stops there.
Nobody else has to have their eye put out.
and know the whole world isn't blind.
Because the whole stupid thing about,
oh, if we're gonna lose the whole world blind,
the thing that's stupid about that is,
who here can say, and actually,
I don't wanna have you raise your hand
if you have put out someone's eye.
Just raise your eye, raise your hand
if you've never damaged anyone else's eye
to where they had to lose their eye.
Put up your hand if you've never knocked out anyone's eye.
Okay, there's a lot of hands aren't going up.
So, okay, wow, you got some rough people here.
Just kidding, but the point is,
The point is that the vast majority of us have never punched someone in the eye to the point where they lost their eye.
So how's the whole world going to be blind, Marty?
You know, it just isn't going to happen, okay?
And so these little cute little statements, they're blasphemous at the end of the day because it's like you're not basing that on the Word of God.
You're criticizing the Word of God.
And Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the law of the prophets.
He came to fulfill.
And when he quoted in Matthew 5,
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
he's not saying that those are wrong statements
because he started out his sermon
by affirming everything in the law of God.
All he's saying is that you don't always have to fight back.
You can turn the other cheek.
You can suffer wrong.
You can allow people to defraud you.
You can forgive.
You can pass over a transgression.
This is talking about in your personal life,
you deciding to forgive people that hurt you.
We, when we're the victim,
we can always decide to forgive people that hurt us,
can't we?
Now this never works with first degree murder,
second degree murder or manslaughter cause you're dead.
So, you can't be like, I forgive you, you know, like you're dead.
But the point is that...
In general, if you just start doing the forgiving for everybody else and just saying,
oh, we're just going to forgive all these murderers, rapists, and whatever,
you're just turning society into just a hellhole.
And there are some hellhole countries in this world.
There are some failed states.
And when we talk about a failed state,
or what Donald Trump affectionately referred to as a crap-hole country,
I'm censoring that just a little bit,
When we're talking about those places,
those are places where the rule of law is not being enforced.
All right, man.
Right?
I mean, think about the failed states of this world.
What do we mean by that?
We mean people steal and get away with it,
people kill and get away with it,
people rape and get away with it.
That's what we mean when we say a failed state.
Okay, those are scary places where you would not want to live.
I don't know about you, but I love the fact that I can go to bed at night and sleep tight
and not worry about anything because I know that we live in a safe country where things
are under control.
And where there aren't just roving bands of marauders and gangs of people, just, you know,
we know that we're pretty safe.
and the chances of something happening are pretty slim, right?
And we can walk down the street in the daytime,
sometimes, in some places, we can even walk down the street at night
and not even think about anything, not worry about anything.
Praise God for that kind of safety,
but you know, you're never going to have that kind of safety
without the rule of law,
without laws being in place and being enforced.
And so this liberal, bleeding heart mentality of going soft on crime, soft on criminals,
you know what it is?
It's hard on victims, is what it is.
And so you're not being kind, gracious or merciful, you're being unkind and unmerciful
to the victims of these evil perpetrators.
And, you know, these sort of, you know, face-tattooed gang members from MS-13, or whatever, who
knows what I'm talking about, MS-13, right?
You know, just these evil, murderous gang members, you know, they should all be put
to death, you know, and these countries that have these organized cabals and cartels of
these kind of people, you know, they should just go to war with them.
and fix the problem.
And here's the thing, I'm all for liberty
and the constitution and everything,
but here's the thing, when the crime gets bad enough,
nobody cares about that anymore.
When the crime gets bad enough,
they're just like, kill the bad guys
and we don't care how you do it, just fix it.
Then when things are safe, then we start talking about,
okay, now let's talk about the rule of law
and due process and everything like that.
But when you're living in a failed state,
You got to just kill these suckers and then get things you know back to normal
And then we can start having a nice civilized system with courtrooms and everything like that and thank God
That's where we're at in America and that's why I'm for the rule of law
You know I'm for giving people due process and so forth
But that's because I'm not scared to walk down the street and neither are you because we don't live in a failed state
So but we shouldn't let people turn this into a failed state
And we're already seeing legislation across the country
where they'll have things like,
oh, you know, you can't prosecute shoplifting.
And obviously that's not a big deal compared to murder,
but that's where it starts.
This thing of, oh, if cars run from the police,
the police can't chase them.
That was a law from, I think,
Washington State a few years back.
Police aren't allowed to chase anybody.
And so then it's just like, I guess now all the normal people are going to pull over and
then all the weird criminals are just going to run every time because the police aren't
allowed to chase them.
And then it's just like, oh, you know, we don't prosecute shoplifters.
We don't prosecute theft.
We don't prosecute graffiti.
We don't prosecute.
And then it just keeps escalating.
Pretty soon you got yourself a violent failed state.
And so, you know, we need to have the rule of law.
And money is not a punishment.
Prison is not a punishment for first-degree murder.
There's only one acceptable punishment according to God, and it's death.
It is death.
What verse did we leave off on? Does anybody know?
Verse 33, it says,
It defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein,
but by the blood of him that shed it.
Defile not therefore the land which ye inhabit, wherein I dwell,
for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel."
Look, if you want God to dwell among you as a people,
you cannot be a land that is shedding innocent blood and letting people get away with it.
You have to put the murderers to death. You have to execute the murderers in order to have that.
And so yeah, you could point to rare circumstances in the Bible where an individual could be pardoned for murder,
but in general, murder must be punished by the death penalty.
in order for society to function properly,
and that is what God has ordained, okay?
And so when you have America today, for example,
and we think about the issue with abortion,
you know, what is the big issue about abortion?
You know, why are Christians so upset about abortion?
Why are we so fired up about it?
You know, you say, well, it's just a tiny little baby,
it's just a tiny little clump of tissue or whatever they say.
But here's the problem is that when you have an abortion,
or when abortions take place in your city,
innocent blood is being shed.
Human beings are being killed.
Human lives are being snuffed out.
And the problem with that is that it incurs the wrath of God on the whole land.
society becomes complicit in that act of murder,
well, now there's a curse upon our land.
And it's repugnant in the eyes of God,
and that's why we're fired up about abortion,
because we want to live in a land that's blessed by God,
blessed as the nation whose God is the Lord,
and we want God to be among us and blessing us.
We don't want to live in a nation where murder goes unpunished,
and then God's wrath is evident.
We don't want that.
So now I'm going to get into the more practical part of the sermon and if you would flip over to 2 Kings chapter 6
So the the purpose of going through numbers 35 is just it's the most detailed passage on
Murder in general giving all the nuts and bolts of what it is what the punishment is
What's the standard of proof and so on and so forth?
But now I want to get into the more practical part, which is reasons why people commit murder, okay?
So I identified three primary reasons why people commit murder
Right? Because one of the best ways to not get involved in sin
is to remove yourself a few steps from getting involved in sin.
Because the Bible says when lust has conceived, it brings it forth sin.
Sin, when it is finished, bring it forth death.
There's a process that leads up to sinning, right?
You don't just go out one day and kill someone.
There's a process that leads up to that, isn't there?
And there are reasons why people commit murder.
And if you can identify these reasons
and make sure you don't go down any of these three paths,
then you're never gonna commit murder.
Because you're not going down these three paths.
So the first reason why people commit murder,
number one, is because of greed.
Because of greed, right?
The covetous person commits murder
because they want to take something
that belongs to someone else.
Now, there are plenty of examples of this in the Bible.
I'm going to read for you some verses while you're getting to 2 Kings 6.
James 4 says,
So the Bible talks about people going to war and killing other people
because they are greedy of those things
that those people possess.
They want to take more land, more resources.
They want to steal their stuff.
You know, Proverbs chapter one, verse 19,
so are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain,
which take away the life of the owners thereof, right?
So people that are greedy of gain
will take away the life of the owners thereof.
And I remember when I was a kid,
there would be things on the news
about people being killed for their shoes.
In Sacramento, California, the Air Jordans or whatever expensive shoes, also the starter jackets.
I remember when I was a kid, you know, everybody wanted the starter jacket for the Oakland Raiders.
I don't even think that's even a thing anymore.
Didn't the Raiders go somewhere else?
Las Vegas what the man I've been out of the loop for a while apparently actually I was never really in the loop
But you know it's like the Oakland Raiders and you know you could kind of get by with the San Francisco 49ers
Nobody's gonna kill you for that, but if you had the Oakland Raiders
You know, and I remember my parents even seeing this stuff on the news and kind of warning me like,
hey, you're not allowed to wear any of this stuff.
We don't want you getting jumped and killed for this stuff.
So we don't want you wearing these brands because on the TV they're saying it's these shoes,
it's these jackets, it's these hats.
If you wear these down the street, you know, these gang members will jump you and kill you.
What is the motive?
Greed.
I want those shoes.
I want that jacket.
I want that hat.
And so this is a real life thing.
Now look at 2 Kings chapter 6, this is actually the next time murder is mentioned by name in the Bible.
Use the word murder in Numbers 35, but then the next time murder pops up.
Called by that name, obviously there's a lot of murder in the Bible, but using the word
murder is 2 Kings 632.
It says, but Elisha sat in his house and the elders sat with him, and the king sent a man
from before him, but heir, heir means before, heir of the messenger came to him.
He said to the elders, see ye how this son of a murderer had sent to take away my head.
Now who is he talking about when he says this son of a murderer is coming to take away my head?
He's talking about the son of
Ahab
Ahab and Jezebel right and what did Ahab and Jezebel do? They murdered Naboth and
Here's the thing that's interesting about that number one. They're doing it because agreed
Ahab really wanted that vineyard and so they killed Naboth to get the vineyard. So what's the motive greed?
Okay? Motive number one, greed.
But not only that, it shows that you can be called a murderer by the word of God,
even if you kill someone indirectly.
So Ahab and Jezebel weren't actually killing people themselves,
but what did they do?
They had people bear false witness against Naboth,
and he was actually put to death
Through a you know, he received a trial and so it was all legal
Nabots execution was legal, but they they're murderers because they lied about him and got him executed
And he was not guilty. So bearing false witness
Leading to violence is an act of violence itself
So if you would turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4 motive number one for murder is greed, right?
That's the reason why people commit murder
Greed. Number two motive is hatred, right?
Hatred. This is something that the Bible emphasizes about murder.
Did I have you turn to Deuteronomy 4? Look at verse 42.
It says that the slayer might flee wither. What are we talking about there?
Flee where? To the city of refuge, right?
Which should kill his neighbor unawares. Watch this.
And hated him not in time past.
and that fleeing under one of these cities he might live.
And the idea here is that hating him in time past
is first degree premeditated murder.
Not hating him in time past is second degree
or manslaughter, go to the city of refuge.
Go if you would to chapter 19, chapter 19.
Motive number one for murder is greed.
Motive number two, hatred.
Look at verse number four of chapter 19.
And this is the case of the slayer which shall flee thither.
Again, we're talking about fleeing to the city of refuge,
that he may live, who so killeth his neighbor ignorantly,
whom he hated not in time past.
Verse six, lest the avenger of the blood
pursue the slayer while his heart is hot
and overtake him because the way is long and slay him,
whereas he was not worthy of death
in as much as he hated him not in time past.
The idea here is that hatred in the past
is the key to premeditated murder in these situations, right?
Because of the fact that there's a motive of,
I hate you, Ergo, I'm going to kill you, okay?
And of course, this is alluded to in the New Testament too,
you know, when it says,
whosoever hated this brother's a murderer.
Okay.
Because hatred in the heart is carried out
in murder ultimately.
So motive number one is greed.
Motive number two is hatred.
Now, here's the thing.
Hatred could also cover things like jealousy and revenge.
Right because if you think about it, let's say someone has been inappropriate with your wife or maybe you know
You wrongfully think that someone was inappropriate with your wife or you just are afraid that someone you know
And you just get some idea in your head. Maybe you're just being paranoid or whatever
But if you go out and kill that guy, it's cuz you're mad at that guy, you know, you hate that guy
You want him dead. You want that particular person dead.
Whereas stealing the shoes, the jacket, the hat,
it's not that you hate that person and want them dead.
It's really just that you want the stuff. It's greed.
A-hab.
A-hab didn't just really want Nabal dead.
He just really wanted that vineyard.
Right.
You see that?
So there's a difference between greed as a motive
and hatred is a motive.
Hatred could also cover things like revenge, right?
Somebody burns you, someone hurts you,
slanders you, does evil to you in some way,
and then you go out and take revenge by murdering that person.
Well then, that is under the hatred category, isn't it?
because hate in your heart is the desire to go murder someone, right?
So if you want to understand what that is,
you know, that's what we're talking about with this motive of hatred like,
oh man, I want this guy dead and then you go out and kill that person,
that's the premeditated murder and that is hatred as a motive.
It could be subcategories of like jealousy, revenge,
you know, whatever reason why you hate that innocent person
that would cause you to do that.
But number three, and if you would go to 2 Samuel chapter 12,
And again, I'm not saying that I'm getting all the motives.
I just, I feel like these are the three biggest motives.
And you could probably think of another really good motive
that I'm missing.
I just kind of thought of the three biggest ones
that we see in real life and that we see in the Bible.
And the three big ones in my opinion are greed, hatred,
and covering up a crime is another big one, right?
Covering up a crime.
And in fact, I'm gonna show you how covering up a crime
is probably the biggest.
In fact, in America today, in 2025, I predict that most murders will be committed to cover
up a crime.
Okay?
So, what have we got here?
Second Samuel 12-9, it says, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord
to do evil in his sight, thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast
taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
Now, of course, this is the story of David and Bathsheba.
I don't have time to go into it.
But the idea here is that David committed adultery
with Bathsheba, and he kills you right
to cover up the crime, to cover up the crime.
You know, there's no indication necessarily
that David is just dying to have Bathsheba as his wife.
You know, he wanted to commit that sin with her.
He did commit that sin with her.
But what's the purpose of murder? Is it greed?
Not necessarily.
Is it hatred for Uriah?
Uriah is actually a great guy that he likes, Uriah.
He doesn't want to kill Uriah.
Why does he kill it?
He kills Uriah because he's trying to cover up a crime
he wants to get away with committing adultery.
So by killing Uriah and marrying Bathsheba,
he can cover up the crime
and no one will know that he committed adultery with her
because, look, he was going to get busted because she was pregnant.
but by killing Uriah, he can cover this up.
So murder is committed to cover up a crime,
and here's why I say that most murders
are committed to cover up a crime,
because abortion falls under this category.
Nobody's going down to the abortion clinic
and saying, oh man, I just really hate this baby.
The baby hasn't even done him dirty yet.
The baby hasn't done anything.
And abortion could really fall under two categories, right?
Of our three big motives, greed, hatred, and covering up a crime,
it could either be the greed category,
because here's how abortion would be committed as an act of greed is,
well, because, you know, I'm not done living my life yet.
I want to spend my money on having fun.
I want to have more money, more resources,
and guess what? We all know having children is expensive,
it takes our resources, it takes our time, it takes our money,
and so people say,
oh, I'm going to go have an abortion
because I'm greedy of those resources
and I'm not willing to share them with my child.
I want to keep all the money and the time and everything for me being selfish.
That is the greed motive for murder.
But then also abortion is often to cover up a crime
because why do women get abortions often?
Because of the fact that they've committed fornication
and they don't want to get busted that they committed fornication
so they go out and have an abortion to cover up the crime.
Now look, fornication is wicked and evil, and you know what, if you go out and fornicate
and get pregnant out of wedlock, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
It is a shameful thing, and you know what, you ought to be chastised for that, and you
ought to be shamed for that, and we're not going to congratulate you on your bastard.
But at the same time, if you've done that, you must face those consequences.
Oh, I don't want to face the shame and consequences of, you know, getting pregnant out of wedlock,
so I'm just gonna go have an abortion.
You are adding a huge crime, fornication is already bad, now you're adding murder.
You think God's gonna bless that?
And if you do that, you know what you're showing is that you have more fear of being embarrassed
or shamed or humiliated than you have of God in heaven.
You ought to be much more scared of God and the consequences of being a murderer.
And just, oh, I don't want people to think ill of me. Ergo, I'm going to go out and kill someone.
First of all, what happens when people find out that you killed your baby?
That's going to be shameful too.
You should be sure your sin will find you out, but even if you never get caught,
God knows that you killed your baby and God's going to punch you.
Now look, if you've already had an abortion in the past, sorry, you committed murder in the past.
Now look, I'm not here to beat up on you or hate on you because you know what?
Hopefully after you did that, hopefully you repented of that. You're sorry. You've made your peace with God.
You're never going to do it again. Obviously all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.
And you know, obviously we can be forgiven of our sins.
And I'm not trying to hang something over your head from 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
But you know what? If you're saying, well, I did it and it was fine, then I don't forgive you.
And you know what I mean? And if you're just saying, oh, well, I had an abortion and it was the right thing to do,
well, then you're wicked and God's going to punish you severely for that on this earth.
But look, if you're, if you did that, if you had an abortion and you're sorry,
and you've repented and you're not gonna do it again, then you know what?
Hey, I forgive you and so does every other, you know, godly Christian forgive you.
And you can move on and live a good godly Christian life.
Okay? But I'm telling you, do not go out
and commit the heinous sin of murder to cover your crime of fornication.
And obviously, here's another big one, is that people will have an abortion because
they're trying to cover up an even worse crime, which is adultery.
You know woman goes out commits adultery gets pregnant with some other dude's baby. Oh, I don't want to ruin my family
Oh, I don't you know, it's like look you already screwed up
You should have thought about that before playing the whore and going out and committing adultery
You should have thought about that now you're gonna have to face the consequences of having this baby
Because it is never right for you to murder your baby. It just isn't
Okay, and you know what committing murder to cover up a crime. We could also take it beyond abortion
and think about all kinds of situations where, you know,
someone is maybe in the process of stealing or robbing,
somebody walks in on them, and then bam, you know,
they have to shoot someone basically to get away
from stealing or whatever they're doing, right?
So if you got caught, you know,
and flagrante delicto or something, you know,
you get in trouble,
for doing something and then you kill the witnesses or something, right?
So that's another time that this could come into play
where people are committing murder to cover up a crime.
Or, you know, somebody knows too much.
You know, this is sort of like when the Clintons are suiciding people, you know?
What's the motive?
They don't necessarily hate those people.
They're not greedy of what those people have,
but rather those people are suicide-ed
because they know too much,
and they're being killed to cover up a crime, you know?
Epstein didn't kill himself or whatever.
And so, it's funny, there's this guy,
there was this meme that was going around,
or not, I don't think meme is the right word.
There's like a graphic that was going around many years ago.
And it was talking about this guy named Victor Thorn
who had died suspiciously,
And this graphic was going around saying,
hey, these are people who like exposed the Clintons,
who died suspiciously, you know,
that supposedly committed suicide,
but they were probably like,
suicide-ed.
And one of them was this guy named Victor Thorne.
And for some reason, whoever made this graphic,
they put my face as Victor Thorne.
And the reason why, and the reason why this happened
was because I guess there just weren't a lot of pictures
of Victor Thorne online.
And what happened is I had brought up or talked about a book by Victor Thorn, and I was talking
about Victor Thorn.
So somebody just went on Google Images, typed in Victor Thorn, and then my face popped up.
Just because I had talked about Victor Thorn, and they're just like, this must be Victor
Thorn.
And so, and I mean, I'm talking, this graphic was viewed by like millions of people.
Like this was a really popular graphic that was being shared, it was like a viral graphic.
I have, like, just tons of people for months mentioning me,
like, hey, I hear you died.
And, like, you know, I saw that you died recently.
I'm sorry you committed suicide.
Ha, ha, you know, because there was just this graphic.
And so this day, I think that graphic's still floating around.
You know, I'm not living a double life as Victor Thorn, OK?
Victor Thorn's a totally different guy.
And, you know, I don't know if he killed himself
or if he was murdered.
But if he was murdered, then the motive was what?
That was the motive and so those are the three big ones that I came up with and so here's the conclusion of the sermon
I mean the moral of the sermon is pretty simple. Don't murder anyone kids
Okay, don't murder anyone and it might seem a little bit simple, but guess what people do it
People commit murder, you know, and it's funny. I learned one thing as a pastor. I'm in my 20th year of pastoring now
Here's what I've learned preach against every sin
Because people do everything
And sometimes you think like,
oh, surely I don't have to preach against drugs.
Nobody's on drugs.
Surely I don't have to preach against pornography.
Nobody's watching pornography.
You know, surely I don't have to preach.
I mean, you name it, it's happening.
Okay.
And so, you know, this is one of those things
where sometimes you kind of feel like,
man, why am I preaching this or something?
I preach the sermon one time called Suicide.
And while I was preaching the sermon,
I was thinking like, why am I preaching on this?
And then I had a guy walk up to me after the service and say he was a first-time visitor and say
Thank you so much. I really needed that sermon
I just attempted suicide like a month and a half ago and I really needed to hear the sermon
Then I had people email me and say thank you for that sermon on suicide that helped me
Then I heard about, you know, someone committing suicide that I kind of vaguely knew and I was like, what in the world?
I guess I did need to preach that sermon. And so if it's in the Bible, we need to preach it.
And so the moral of the sermon is simple, don't commit murder, but I'm going to take it a step further and say that, you know,
ultimately murder proceeds from the heart. And what did Jesus say from within?
Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, and murders.
These things come from within the heart and so my advice to you today is that the best
way not to commit murder is not to have a reason to commit murder.
So don't go down either of these three roads in your mind, right?
Do not go down these paths of number one greed.
Don't be greedy.
Be content with what you have you're not going to be killing people to steal their stuff if you're content with what you have
Now you're a couple steps removed from murdering someone right whereas if you're already super greedy and just lusting after money
Now you're just one step away from well, you know what I?
Can just you know smother grandma for the inheritance or something you know what I mean?
Because you know because you're already right there because you're already just obsessed with money, and you know she's got all that
You know and you but if you're not greedy
You're not even gonna be close to doing something like that, right?
Sorry for the crude illustration there
But number two hatred hatred do not avenge yourself
Right? Because, again, most of the hatred category is some kind of a vindictive,
vengeful, I'm going to get back at that person who's done what does the Bible say?
Love your enemies!
Dearly beloved of Vanginau yourselves!
But rather give place under wrath, right?
Put off wrath, put off anger, for it is written,
vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.
And then number three, covering a crime, don't commit the crime.
You're not going to need to cover up fornication if you didn't commit fornication.
You're not going to need to cover up adultery if you
don't commit adultery. And obviously fornication and adultery
often lead to death in one form or another. And so
don't commit the crime. You don't have to cover the crime. Don't be greedy
and you're not going to be killing people because of greed. Do not
Avenge yourself and be vindictive and hateful toward those who've wronged you.
Let it go. Pray to the Lord. Let the Lord deal with it.
Then you're not going to be just on the verge of just, you know,
you're not just going to be sitting there loading the gun and thinking about it and everything.
You know, because like I said, these things don't just happen immediately, typically.
You know, you hate them in time past.
and then that culminates in murder.
So children, do not commit murder, amen.
Let's bards and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
And Lord God, please help us to live lives
that would honor and glorify you.
Thank you so much that the sins that we have committed
are forgiven and forgotten.
Thank you so much for salvation through Christ.
But Lord, those of us who are saved
help us to live a life that is honoring and glorifying
And Lord, help us not to even have these things in our heart
that would even lead us down that road.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
take your hymnals, please. Go to hymn 303.
We'll be dismissed in singing 303.
My faith looks up to thee.
Hymn number 303.
303. Lift it up on that first now.
My faith looks up to thee that
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