(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Verse number 19 then continues on about here avenging yourselves because this would be another situation where you might feel like, well, I need to right this wrong and get yourself into a situation that would be an altercation that can lead you to, oh, well, I'm defending myself, right? But we need to avoid that as well. Bible says, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for his written vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt eat coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. This is the spirit and the mindset that we need to be walking by and living by, okay? This is the great general, hey, this is how I'm gonna live my life day to day. And we're gonna try this. Now, there's gonna be times, there can be times where even doing as much as you can here isn't enough to prevent you from having to defend yourself because there's evil, wicked people out there that that's what they're set on, is doing harm or, you know, whatever. And sometimes having this mindset isn't enough to avoid a confrontation or avoid a situation where you have to defend yourself, right? But this is how we want to, as much as we can with the control we have, to avoid it altogether. And this is what's right. I mean, this is what the Bible's teaching us to do. Anyways, if we just follow this, you'll find yourself not having those situations. So what does the Bible say about defending yourself or others? You know, the principle here is to seek peace. The Bible also talks about not being strikers, not being brawlers, right? And when saying that, that's someone who's more characterized about someone who's, you know, they're a fighter, right? They're a brawler. This isn't talking about, that's not talking about sport of playing games. I mean, this is talking about people who, you know who the type is. We've all seen them. The ones that like just getting into fights with people. Oftentimes, alcohol can fuel this as well. If you're in bar type situation, where it's, I don't worry about anyone, no one should be. But there's people who will just kind of, that's what they want to do. They're brawlers, they want to start fights, any little thing. They'll look for reasons to get in a fight with people. And that's not how we ought to be, right? And don't put yourself in situations where that type of people are around either. That's another way to help you avoid these situations. But self-defense in general, that's what I titled the sermon, is a real broad subject, because there's lots of ways to defend yourself. And I'm going to start off here just by dealing with the most extreme form, which would be a lethal self-defense. Right, because if we deal with that situation, obviously the things that would be less lethal, it's a lot easier to understand where the limits are. If we could establish limits on when is it okay to take another life in the act of defending yourself, is it okay, what does the Bible say about that? The rest of it becomes a lot easier to understand and deal with, because if I have this much extent, if I have the extent to take another person's life in defending myself, then you definitely have the right to use less lethal or less than lethal methods of defending yourself. So that's why we start with that extreme, because it already encompassed everything else. Turn to Exodus chapter 21. Exodus 21, we see a lot of the laws regarding killing of another person. And there's multiple situations that are brought up in the scripture. And the scripture does, and I preach entire sermon on the death penalty and these types of laws. And there's a distinguishing between manslaughter and first-degree murder is the way that we would think of it. Like premeditated, someone's out to kill someone is way different of a crime than something happening by accident, maybe there's just an accidental death, or a situation where a person wasn't trying to kill them, something happened, they got in a fight or whatever, but they didn't just have it out to kill them, but they ended up dying anyways. So there's a distinguishing factor there. And this would be a situation where if you're defending yourself, someone's attacking you or trying to attack your family, and you end up killing that person, well, you wouldn't be considered a murderer because you didn't have it out to kill that person. You weren't trying to just do harm to that person, but they did end up dying at your hands. So it would still be a killing, which there's such a high value on life that God puts an extremely enormous value on a human life. And for very good reason. We got the story of, if you remember the story of the man that was possessed with the devil, and then Jesus cast out with the legion, with all the devils, and Jesus cast them out into the swine, and you have all those swine running off down the hill and then dying in the sea, and it was worth it, and Jesus was willing to make the sacrifice of however much financial, however much that was worth all those swine's life to whoever the owner was, that that man's life was more important, his soul was more valuable than all of those swine and however much money that was. And that's just one example. Obviously, there's lots of examples in scripture just valuing life. So we don't want to take this lethal self-defense lightly either because it's a big deal. It's taking someone's life, they're gone. They're not coming back. It's done. And it's another situation where you don't, we shouldn't be looking for it. You don't want it to happen, but you know what? There are times where even here with the law, we're gonna see that if that happens, you're not going to be put to death because the death penalty is a sign for people who kill, right, for murderers. But as we see here, look at verse number 12 of Exodus 21. The Bible says, He that smiteth a man so that he die shall be surely put to death. So if you hit somebody and you end up killing that person, he says, you know what? You're gonna be put to death. But then it goes on to explain, and you could read this in context later. Just take note and read the whole chapter for yourself. Verse 13 says, And if a man lie not in wait, so he's not like out to get him, but God deliver him into his hand, then I will appoint thee a place whether he shall flee. So this is, that's the manslaughter where he wasn't trying to kill him. It wasn't his intention. It wasn't his motivation. But now he's gonna go and kinda seek refuge in another area so that that person's family isn't gonna come after him and kinda start this whole back and forth and have a war over this person who died. So, and again, I went through all that with the death penalty. You could go back and find that sermon or just read this chapter for yourself later on. Flip over to chapter 22. So we see there that, you know, there isn't a real punishment for manslaughter other than you just kinda gotta get out of that situation with the person who was killed. So when you're, if you're in a situation where you have to defend yourself, your intent is not to kill the person, right? You're not, it's not premeditated. You didn't have it out for him. In most cases where you're gonna defend yourself, you probably don't even know the people, whatever, right? Just someone trying to do you harm. There's no punishment on that person's death, on their blood. Even though the value of life is high, God still puts this as saying, okay, well you're not gonna be punished for that.