"If the truth offends, then let it offend.
People have been living their whole lives in offense to God; let them be
offended for a little while." - Dr. John MacArthur
"If the truth offends, then let it offend.
People have been living their whole lives in offense to God; let them be
offended for a little while." - Dr. John MacArthur
Life and Death in the New World
- Sermons
- Genesis 9:1-6
- 90-262
- May 6, 2001
So
prior to the flood, God was protecting people. And then there was in the later
part of the fourth chapter a man named Lamek, and Lamek you remember said that
he had killed a man and that he was proud about it, there's no indication that
God required his life.
But
now, in the new world, God is gonna provide some blessing that He didn't
provide before. He's gonna authorize the eating of anything and everything,
He's gonna tell them to cook it so that they don't introduce into their body
those kinds of things that can cause their death, and He's gonna put into place
capital punishment to prevent people being killed.
Notice
again in verse 5, "Surely I will require". In Psalm 9, I think it's
verse 12, God is actually called He who requires blood. The Psalm has
identified God as the one who required blood, referring to God's requirement
for execution as compensation.
This
is of course repeated elsewhere in the Old Testament. 2 Chronicles chapter 24
has a section that deals with this. In verse 20 of 2 Chronicles 24, "Then
the Spirit of God came upon Zachariah, the Son of Jehovah the priest. He stood
above the people and said to them, 'Thus God has said, why do you transgress
the commandment of the Lord and do not prosper because you have forsaken the
Lord; he has also forsaken you.' So they conspired against him and at the
command of the king, they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the
Lord. Thus Jonas the King did not remember the kindness which his father
Jehovah had shown him, but he murdered his son. And as he died he said, 'May
the Lord see an avenge."
Here
was a man being murdered illegitimately, and he looks to Heaven and says,
"May God avenge you for this" because he knew what the law of God
against murder was.
And
you will also compare 2 Samuel 4:10. It tells the story about David and you
remember, David carried out this law of capital punishment on those who killed
Ishbasha. Do you remember, he was the son of Sol, and he was killed and David
acted as God's avenging agent. So they knew what the Law of God was with regard
to those who killed.
And
not only humans, but the Lord first of all says "From every beast I will
require it". From every beast. If an animal takes the life of a many, the
life of that animal is to be taken. That animal has stepped across the boundary
of fear and dread that animals should have toward man, and I require the life
of that animal.
Exodus
21:28, "If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox should surely
be stoned, its flesh shall not be eaten, the owner of the ox shall go
unpunished. If, however, an ox was previously in the habit of goring, and its
owner has been warned, yet he doesn't confine it, and it kills a man or a
woman, the ox shall be stoned and its owner shall also be put to death".
Hmm, better kill that ox. It could cost you your life. God will avenge the
death of a man on the animal which has broken through the divine fence as it
were of fear and terror to kill a man. So the destruction of that kind of
animal receives divine sanction.
And
God doesn't stop with animals. He says verse 5, "From every man's brother
I will require the life of man". Man is included in this. Every man. From
every man's brother, and that is an allusion to Cain killing Abel. And by the
way, at the time he said this, there was only one father and three brothers.
Killing a man is serious. Killing your brother is serious. "And I will
require the life of man". Exodus
21:12, "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to
death".
Now,
look at this sentence in verse 6, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his
blood shall be shed". That very precise sentence is given in what's called
a lapidary style. It is a keyostic parallelism. What does that mean? It repeats
in the second half of the sentence every word in the first half in reverse
order. "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed".
It's said that way so that it might be remembered. This is the law of lex
talionis, the law of retaliation. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth" as Exodus 21 says it. If you shed man's blood, that means you
murder somebody. By man, at the hands of man, your blood shall be shed. This is
not personal vengeance, this is simply the responsibility of humanity. By man
in the humanity sense. If you kill someone, your life will be taken by man. The
agency then is man. Under divine mandate. He is the instrument of God's
vengeance, in human society, on murderers.
 |
|
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy
sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword (Matthew 26:52, King James Version)
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://genius.com/Slayer-die-by-the-sword-lyrics]
|
All
through the Scripture there's the forbidding of personal vengeance. But
societal vengeance is prescribed under God's law for mans' protection. And when
you get into the New Testament, Jesus confirms this in one of the really
important statements. It's Matthew
26:52 and the soldiers have come into the Garden to take Jesus, and you
remember Peter is there. Peter sees the soldiers coming to take the Lord, he
doesn't want them to do that, so he pulls out a sword, remember? And he swings
at the head of Malakus, the servant of the High Priest who was probably in
front of the crowd kind of going ahead of the High Priest, and he tried to cut
his head off. You don't use a sword just to make scratches on people or to
whack off their ears; nobody is that good with a sword - least of all Peter,
who wasn't even a soldier. He was trying to cut his head off and he ducked, no
doubt, and lost an ear.
 |
And Jesus said this to
Peter. Matthew 26:52, "Put your sword back in its place. For all those who
take up the sword shall perish by the sword". What was Jesus saying? If
you take that mans' life, you have to give your life. You can't use that sword
to kill somebody with impunity. You take his life, they have a right to take
your life. Jesus said all those who take up the sword are gonna die by the
sword. All who kill will themselves die. And thus did Jesus uphold the law of
capital punishment. - John F. MacArthur [PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/xthdn2rmx7ks/1004/and-jesus-said-this-to-peter-matthew-2652-put-your-sword] |
And
Jesus said this to Peter. Matthew 26:52, "Put your sword
back in its place. For all those who take up the sword shall perish by the
sword". What was Jesus saying? If you take that mans' life, you
have to give your life. You can't use that sword to kill somebody with
impunity. You take his life, they have a right to take your life. Jesus said
all those who take up the sword are gonna die by the sword. All who kill will
themselves die. And thus did Jesus uphold the law of capital punishment.
The
Apostle Paul did the same thing; he upheld the death penalty. He was speaking
in Acts
25:11 in the Roman Court under Festus in the city of Czarina, he said,
"If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I
do not refuse to die". Paul understood that the capital punishment law was
a law of God. And he said if I've done anything worthy of death, I don't refuse
to die - I can accept my just execution.
And
then that very familiar portion of Scripture, Romans 13 which is very clear. It
tells us if you do what is evil be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for
nothing. It is a minister of God and it's talking about government. Talking
about authority; the powers that be. And he says, "the powers that be, if
you do what is evil, should cause you fear, for they do not bear the sword for
nothing. Rather, they are ministers of God, avengers who bring wrath on those
who practice evil."
What
is a sword for? A sword was not to slap people with, it was not to scratch
people with, it was to kill people with. It was a deadly weapon. It wasn't a
whip, it wasn't sticks, it wasn't stocks, it was an instrument of death. And he
says the government doesn't have this instrument of death for nothing, but
rather, as avengers of God who bring God's wrath on ones who practice evil. So
Paul taught submit to the civil authorities. Submit to the government. Because
they have the power of capital punishment, and they do it - this is interesting
- as the minister of God.
I
remember one time I was doing a training session for the LAPD down in Parker
Center, and it was everybody from sergeants right on up through the ranks of
the Los Angeles Police Department. And I wanted to give them a new
understanding of their identity, and so I taught them Romans 13. And I started
out by saying I'm here as a minister of God to speak to fellow ministers of
God. And some of them put down their cigars and said, "What?" I said,
"Yes, you're ministers of God".
And
I wanted to tell them that they are ministers of God for vengeance on evil
people. They had, for the most part, never even heard of such a thing. They
liked it. They liked it a lot. And they asked me, I think a few weeks later, to
give the same talk to the fire department. This is a little bit different,
since they don't carry weapons. We covered some other areas. But they are
ministers of God. Governments are responsible to take life when life has been
taken.
It's
unpleasant to think of a lethal injection; it's unpleasant to think of an
electrocution, it's unpleasant to think of a hanging, it's unpleasant to think
of a firing squad, it's unpleasant to think of a guillotine or any other mode
of death - but those are the kinds of things that stand as threats behind the
stability of civilized society. And this is a protective power. A necessity
determined by the creator for the blessing of his creation.
So
God says, "Kill all the animals you want, no penalty." Isn't' that
amazing now? People kill animals and they're going to court and being sent to
jail. Isn't that true? When God says you can kill and eat anything you want it
doesn't mean somebody else's pet, you understand that; I mean, there's a limit.
It also doesn't mean you can climb the fence and kill the next rancher's cow.
There are some obvious limitations But, the general pattern is that all of
these creatures are for our use. If you need a horse to ride, that's wonderful.
If you need a goat to keep the grass cut, that's great. If you wanna eat the
animals, you can do that as well, as we all do. but once you kill a man, you're
gonna lose your life. Big difference between an animal and a man. Right? what's
the difference? Back to Genesis; the big difference, do you see it, the very
end of the verse, "For in the image of God He made man". Now we're
back to that same great reality, that man is transcendent; man is eternal, man
is personal.
Nothing
is as devastating, folks - and you know this - nothing is as devastating in
human experience as somebody's death. Right? you can lose your job, survive.
Lose your house, survive. You lose your kidney, survive. Lose your foot,
survive. You lose your dog, you survive. But the pain of all pains is when you
lose somebody in your family, isn't it. that's because of personhood. It's
because of relationships. Spiritual connection. That's true even among
degenerate people. murder, then, is a sin of the highest rank in the physical
realm. It is the ultimate crime. It's the worst crime of all crimes. You can
steal a man's cow, steal a man's sheep, burn a man's field, ruin his reputation
- that's bad, but the worst thing you can do to somebody is kill them.
devastating to their whole family.
 |
|
‘Pope Francis is dead wrong about
capital punishment. God has commanded government to use the death penalty to
demonstrate the seriousness of murder: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his
blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6).’ - Pastor Robert Jeffress
versus Pope Francis
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://twitter.com/williamtstew/status/1026272804201811968]
|
It
is the ultimate crime against the highest of God's creation. Somebody in God's
image, who is transcendent, personal, and eternal. And a murderer has removed
one of the images of God from the earth; and consequently, severely disfigured
that image in himself so as to deserve death. And maybe the widespread evil in
the pre-flood world was aided and abetted by a failure to deal with murderers.
I would be convinced today that crime in our society and killing in our society
is aided and abetted by a failure to kill murderers. And to kill them swiftly.
And
just as a footnote, the Mosaic law provides lesser punishment for manslaughter,
inadvertent, accidental killing, and we're not talking about war, when one is
defending ones self against an attacker who is a would-be murderer. Actually,
in the later law of Moses, there were about 35 different sins for which God
prescribed capital punishment. But the worst of all was murder.
So
here's life in the new world. and God provides these blessings. Procreation, what
a blessing is marriage and family. Prominence, and what a blessing it is to
rule, to be king of the earth, all the animal life, all the plant life for our
enjoyment. Sometimes it is for pets, sometimes it is for animals that work the
farm, and sometimes it is for food; but it's all ours. And then there is the
wonderful blessing of prohibition, where the Lord says don't eat it raw, and
don't drink that blood, because its' harmful and I wanna protect you from the
mutating microorganisms that since the fall carry death potentially. And then
there is the protection of all protections that labels one who is a murderer of
man and eliminates his life.
And
all of this, folks, is the common grace that exists in the world that
demonstrates the patience and forbearance of God that is meant to lead man to
repentance, in the words of Romans 2:4. this is God's goodness for all mankind. And
sadly, God has been so patient and so gracious and so kind and so good to
sinners, and he hasn't destroyed the world since the flood, and he won't until
the very end. And so we can say with the apostle Paul in 2
Corinthians 6:1, 2,
"Now is the day of salvation", right? this is the time to see the
good hand of God in the world. to see his patience and forbearance. To
recognize that he has overlooked the accumulated sinfulness of man, dealt with
us graciously.
No comments:
Post a Comment