Defining Life

"You shall not murder."

It seems a simple enough statement. But we are living in a society that thrives on redefining terms. For example, "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is." Our culture has redefined sex, marriage and family. It is also trying to redefine life.

Life begins at conception, that moment when sperm meets egg, and a biological spark starts the multiplication process within the merging cells. DNA from one dances with DNA from the other, writing the genetic code of a new being using the building blocks from the two contributors. Within a matter of hours, this union will have formed a 16-celled blastocyst looking for temporary lodging in the mucus lining of the womb, and once attached, that being will grow until within a matter of days there are brainwaves and a tiny heartbeat. Soon this miniature person will have head and shoulders, knees and toes, and after a short maturation process of nine months, the little boy or girl emerges from the womb ready to live the life they were destined to have.

The Bible teaches us the beginning of life in the womb, for the twins Jacob and Esau wrestled together in their mother's womb, a strife that continued until their aged adulthoods. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost in his mother's womb, and he leaped in the presence of the newly conceived Christ. And Exodus 21 makes guilty of murder the man who harms a woman so that she loses a pregnancy.

Those who base their approval of abortion on the thought that an embryo or fetus is not a life do so on a foundation of philosophy rather than fact. They choose not to believe that life begins at conception and develops in the womb, and so have been responsible for the bloody holocaust that has claimed the life of an entire generation of Americans!

And as if redefining the beginning of life wasn't enough, we have now entered into a long discussion about the quality of life, and should an individual be allowed the decision to end their own existence. How old and sick should we allow our loved ones to become before we ease them out of their discomfort to maintain their dignity? I recently had to deal with both a beloved pet who had lost all muscle control, and a grandfather who had lost all quality of life twelve years ago to the long goodbye of Alzheimer's. The animal, not being made in the image and likeness of God and having no eternal soul, was a no-brainer; I took him to the vet and had the vet put him to sleep, permanently. My grandfather, on the other hand--how easy some would make it to simply put him out of his own misery, like a soulless pet! I have to tell you that as heart-breaking as it has been through the years to watch a once strong man deteriorate into a veritable vegetable, I have also trusted God to guide that gentle man to his final appointment with destiny. God didn't need my help to end that life.

In between, there are all of those who grow desperate or depressed or discouraged or distressed and think that the best thing to do is simply end this life on their own terms. So they put a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger. Or they hang themselves from the rafters with rope or belt. Or they slit their wrists and simply let the life bleed out of them. Or they take a handful of medicine that turns to poison in large quantities. Or they speed their car purposely into an immovable barrier. Or they leap off tall buildings in a single bound. They leave the rest of those who loved them standing around wondering why, and I can't help but imagine God's word on the matter: "What in the world are you doing? This isn't what I wanted for you!"

When we allow ourselves to redefine things like life in a way contrary to the word of God, it doesn't take long before we are pushing the limits in all kinds of directions. We kill the unborn now; how long before we kill the born, but unwanted, the deformed, the diseased, the defective, the disappointing? How long before we rid our society of the crippled, the infirm, the afflicted, the retarded, the not-quite-up-to-par? How long before we start weeding out of the gene pool the undesirables, who aren't the right color or shape or race or creed? How long before we have so devalued life that even murder becomes just another acceptable means of expressing oneself?

The Sixth Commandment

"You shall not murder."
The Law of God is pretty straightforward. These are the things you must do, these are the things you must not do. Throughout the rest of Exodus, followed by Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, God and Moses expound on the meaning behind the commandments. Over the course of the next 1500 years, the priests and Levites, prophets and teachers, later the Scribes, doctors, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and pretty much everybody else familiar with the Mosaic code would continue expounding on it. And when Jesus came, He Himself had much to say about the Law. And still, at its base and most simple understanding, the Law of God is pretty straightforward.

In considering this particular of the commandments, it should also be noted that not only does God set down in stone the Ten Commandments to govern the individuals and the community of His people, He also gives the penalty for transgressing the law if one is caught (and I'd like to stress that point--if one is caught; people didn't go turning themselves in). In the pre-Christ era of God's dealings with Israel, if two or more someones saw another someone committing a transgression of the Law, they were to be brought before the elders, accused, proven guilty, and then immediately taken outside the camp or city and stoned to death. In some cases, their bodies were to be burned and the ashes scattered. Death was the penalty of sin.

The sixth commandment is one that protects the sanctity of human life: life created in the image and likeness of God, life given by the breath and sustained by the will of God, and life that is governed by the laws of God.

You shall not murder. This is the prohibition of taking a life unjustly, either as an act of premeditation or of passion.

If you willfully kill another human being, your own life is forfeit.

Killing in battle was apparently not considered murder, though killing in self-defense was.

Causing the death of the unborn child, one still in its mother's womb, was named specifically as murder and deserving of death.

And to top it all off, Jesus explained this commandment by saying that if we are angry with someone unjustly, and thereby wish their harm, we are guilty in our hearts of murder.

Life belongs to God, and we should be careful not to unjustly take it into our own hands.

The First Commandment with Promise

"Honor your father and your mother

that your days may be long upon the land

which the Lord your God is giving you."

Remember the old Bill Cosby routine about parenthood? "Boy, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!" Jokingly we perpetuate the idea that if a child doesn't behave, we will just put an end to their miserable existence and start over with a new model. But the law of God required all children to be well behaved, obedient, and honorable toward their parents...or else. There is even a place in the law that allows for the destruction of a rebellious and willfully unrepentant child. Just bring that unruly kid to the elders at the gates of the city and stone him.

Of course, there's no Biblical evidence that it was ever done. But it could have happened; the law provided for that eventuality. And if it did, I'm certain it was the very last straw, the very ultimate measure of discipline employed by a parent who had done everything else as they were supposed to do. This was the final resort. I can imagine a Word-wise woman holding the scroll open to that passage of Scripture and telling her couch-potato, video-game junkie teenager, "Boy, you do what I tell you, or your growin' up days are over. The Bible says so!"

There is certainly in the Bible that application of the fifth commandment--if you want to survive past childhood, you've got to honor your parents. Thank God we're under grace today, and not under the law.

But there is something further involved there, the God element. In Ephesians 6, Paul calls this commandment the first one with promises attached to it--honor your parents, that it may be well with you, that you may live long on the earth. In the original Decalogue, there is only that promise of long life, but the sermon of Moses in Deuteronomy expands it to include a blessed life as well. Really, life and death are in the hands of God, and it never fails me to think, when I meet someone advanced in years--say, past 90--to actually tell them, "You must have been obedient to your parents." Never yet have they disagreed with my assessment.

My own dad died at age 49 of a stroke following a minor knee reconstruction surgery. In the days when he lay dying in a semi-conscious state, he was heard to mutter these words: "You got to honor your mama." As a child, and as an adult before he was saved, he was very hateful and spiteful toward his mother. Only after his salvation was the relationship really restored, and even then it was sometimes rocky. He became a Christian at age 27, and for nearly 22 years he served the Lord with everything he had, everything that was within him, and he lived with the expectation that Jesus was coming soon. It occurred to us afterward that perhaps he had always known he was not long for this life; that a disobedient childhood had shortened his life expectancy, therefore he did all he could with what he had while he had the chance.

The Fifth Commandment

"Honor your father and your mother

that your days may be long upon the land

which the Lord your God is giving to you."

I looked up the word "honor" online to see what it meant in the original Hebrew, and I was surprised by what I found. It is a word defined by heaviness. The lexicons give us the understanding that to honor means to make heavy or, I believe, give weight to.

In many ways, we live in a societal culture defined in the Proverbs as a generation that hates its father and curses its mother. The government has slowly but surely stripped away the vestiges of parental authority, leaving mom and dad whimpering over their three year old brat whom they cannot control, "I just don't know what to do!" Kids find it easier to despise their sniveling parents than to give weight to anything they say or do. It's high time parents quit looking to the government and society for parenting guidelines and return to the word of God for their instructions. The most important thing mom and dad can do for their kids is to raise them in the training and admonition of the Lord, for if you raise up a child in the way they should go, when they are old they won't depart from it. Nourish them, disciple them, and when necessary, discipline them. Give them something to respect!

The concept of honoring ones parents is more than just a child's obedience. It is listening to them at all stages in life and learning from their wisdom and experience, and the wisdom handed down to them from their parents. Imagine the knowledge and understanding we would have amassed if each generation passed on what it had learned to a generation willing to learn it. To honor them is to glorify them for who they are, to hold them up and bear their weightiness, to give heed to what they say, even when you don't agree.

Of course, this works best when parents are believers, serving the Lord with all their hearts. When a child believes and their parents do not, it is difficult and sometimes dangerous to follow the bidding of the unbeliever. But weight must still be given to them in their role as father and mother, the ones who presented you with the gift of life that came from God. To honor means to love and respect, and not necessarily because they deserve it--we are to honor them because it is the will of God.

And we are to honor them as long as we draw breath. Obedience to the fifth commandment does not end with personal emancipation from the support of your parents. Mom and Dad must always be honored, just as we honor our Father in heaven.

A Day of Rest

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter,

nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle,

nor your stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,

the sea, and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

I remember a sign that hung sarcastically in my grandmother's home, and it said this, "A man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done." Perhaps there was some truth to that, but I know for a fact that even women have to sit down and rest at times; and every person, man and woman alike, has to sleep. And even though the statement is funny and sometimes true, I like God's Word on the matter. Work six days, then rest on the seventh. In it you shall do not work.

The Bible proclaims God's work ethic very clearly. He intends for people to work. Even in the beginning, Eden was not some idyllic place of idleness in which Adam and Eve laid around in the shade all day eating apples. Eden was a garden that needed tending, filled with animals which needed naming, and this was Adam's job. It was the labor God gave his hands to do. It was his duty, his employment, and his responsibility to take care of God's creation. And at the end of each day, God would come down to talk to Adam and perhaps inspect his work.

The New Testament reinforces in doctrine the practices of the Old. Paul wrote that everybody ought to lead quiet lives, mind their own business, and work with their hands. When he heard that some were being lazy while waiting for the return of the Lord, he commanded that the ones who didn't work wouldn't eat. And he says that the man who won't work to take care of his own is worse than an infidel. We were made to work.

But neither our bodies nor our psyches were designed for continuous work. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. God doesn't want his servants dulled and useless, which is why He commands a day for rest, which sharpens us for our next labors. It's interesting to note that at one point in German history, someone decided to work the mules every day; soon they began dying. And in revolutionary France, the enlightened humanistic government decided that one day of rest in ten would be quite sufficient; the labor force decreased in efficiency and productivity. Soon, even the godless were recognizing the benefits of one day of rest a week. So should we.

To labor means to work with our hands as servants to whatever master we are pledged to. The word work applies to our occupation and business, our religion and our politics. There are six days given to us to attend ourselves and those who employ us, and that is exactly as it should be. But there is a seventh day given in which we shall not do work. We are to cease completely from working for ourselves and others, and commit our body, mind, soul, strength and spirit to worshiping the Lord and giving our bodies their needed rest.

In this way, we honor the Lord with our time and give our bodies the benefit of divinely ordained rest.

A Tithing of Time

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work:

you, nor your son, nor your daughter,

nor your male servant, nor your female servant,

nor your cattle,nor your stranger who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,

the sea, and all that is in them,

and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

There is an ancient principle found in the Scriptures in which God always sets something aside for Himself. In Eden, it was one tree among all the others. Adam and Eve could eat the fruit of any tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In the Promised Land, it was one city among all the others. Joshua and the Israelites could keep the plunder from all the cities they conquered except the first one, Jericho. In Israel, it was one tribe among all the others. Twelve tribes were assigned property as their inheritance, but as priests, the Levites had no inheritance except the Lord. The tribe of Levi labored in the tabernacle and later the temple on behalf of all the others, and as a result, their sustenance and support came from the giving of the other tribes. When you harvested crops, a tithe went to the Lord. When your flocks and herds increased, a tithe went to the Lord. Firstfruits had to be offered, and the Firstborn had to be redeemed. In this way, your tithes supported those who worked in the house of the Lord.

The percentage seems to have been set by Abraham, who gave a tenth of all his possessions to Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of God Most High. Jacob also promised to give God a tenth of all his possessions. The word tithe actually means tenth, and the prophet Malachi says we rob God if we don't give him that much. In the Gospels, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You're so careful to give ten percent of your possessions, but you ignore things like mercy and justice. You should pay more attention to the latter, while continuing to do the former."

So what does that have to do with the Sabbath? Think about this.

In a week, there are 168 hours--seven days of 24 hours each. A tenth of that time would be 2.4 hours a day, or 16.8 hours for the whole week. Now consider that in the 24 hours of evening and morning, 7 or so hours were allotted for sleeping, leaving roughly 17 hours of wake time. Is it possible that God set aside a tenth of our waking hours in the Sabbath and expected us to dedicate those hours to Him?

While I believe it is important to literally work six days and use the seventh for rest and worship, I think the deeper principle is that we should recognize God's presence every day of our lives and strive to give Him a tithe of our time. When I was pastoring my first church, we had Sunday School, Sunday morning and evening services, Wednesday night Bible Study and Friday night prayer. With five opportunities to attend a worship service of some kind, that was usually only about 8 hours of time a week, leaving 9 more to fulfill our tithe of time to the Lord.

What should we do with that remaining time? Personal devotion that includes prayer, praise and study of the Word is one way to consume the tithe. We should also devote our efforts to witnessing in the world, serving the members of the Body of Christ, and using our talents to benefit the local church. All that in addition to giving a tenth of our increase to fund the work and ministry that God has ordained.

In this way too, giving God 17 hours a week, we honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy.

The Fourth Commandment

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
In it you shall do no work:
you, nor your son, nor your daughter,
nor your male servant, nor your female servant,
nor your cattle,
nor your stranger who is within your gates.
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

This fourth of the ten commandments has been the source of a lot of conflict and confusion, but there are some simple principles behind this complicated command.

Our week is seven days long. It is seven days long because that is the way God ordered things in the beginning. For six days, and the Bible reads as if they were six literal twenty-four hour periods, God labored in the creation of the world that we now know, and on the seventh he ceased from His labors and rested. That seventh day He called the Sabbath, and ordained that men should labor as He did, and then rest from their labors, just as He did.

So this command says, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

First of all, to remember means to make a memorial of. The seventh day, designated from the beginning of the world as a day of rest, was also to be a day of reflection. The first six days were focused on work. This seventh day was for redirecting our attention from our labors and our production to the strength of our labors and the source of our produce. No man derives his ability to work from himself, but rather from the gifts and strength that God has created within Him. Therefore, it is only fitting that we spend a day honoring God as the ultimate source of all that we are and all that we are able to do.

Additionally, we are to consecrate this day as special unto the Lord. It was to be set apart from the other days, in purpose and in fulfillment. It was a day of rest, of worship, of dedication. The first six days were about us; the seventh day was about Him. 15 Centuries later, Jesus revealed that the Sabbath was actually a day for our benefit, personally, physically, and spiritually. As we use a day to cease from our labors and seek the Lord, we are renewed inwardly and outwardly. And therein is the practical importance of the Sabbath.