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Colin Smith: Think of it this way: it's rather like a train moving down a track. Murder in any of its forms is at the far end of the track. It's at the terminus. Many of us will never go near that station at the end of the track, but all of us have ridden the train somewhere along the line.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible Weekend with Pastor Colin Smith. Today, we continue a message, "Your Struggle for Peace," based on the commandment, "Thou shalt not murder." Colin, for many of us who think, "Okay, that's easy. Not going to murder anybody. Check. I'll keep that commandment easily enough." But it sounds like you're saying it may not be that easy.

Colin Smith: I've got this one in the bag! Yes, well, when the Lord Jesus comes to speak about this in the Sermon on the Mount, He relates the commandment to not murder to being angry with your brother. I'm using this analogy of being stations on the line of a train track. Murder may be at the far end and we may not have been there, but all of us have been on the line somewhere in terms of getting angry with another person.

That brings the relevance of the commandment home. This is why we keep finding out that the commandments take us from the place of thinking we're all right to the place where we say, "You know, we're not as right as we thought we were, and we need Jesus more than perhaps we had imagined."

Steve Hiller: Last time, we began to talk about the dignity of human life. We began to look at how we were created in the image of God. Today, we're actually going to take that one step further.

Colin Smith: We talked last time about how all human life has unique dignity and value because human life is in the image of God. I want to say that to you personally as you listen to the program today. Perhaps someone listening is feeling really down and you're saying, "I don't know that my life's worth anything. Everything I touch seems to go wrong. I don't know what point there is in me living."

I'm saying to you from the Bible today, and I want you to hear it as the word of God for you, that your life has unique dignity and worth. God has a purpose for you. The value He has set upon you is the giving of His own Son and the shedding of the blood of Christ. That is how much you are loved by God, and He loves you because He has an eternal purpose for you. I want to encourage you to lay hold of the hope that is yours in Jesus Christ today. Seeing the value and the calling of our lives really is something of huge importance, especially when we face some pretty dark times.

Steve Hiller: It certainly is. With that, Colin, let's get to our teaching. We're in Exodus chapter 20 as we continue the message, "Your Struggle for Peace."

Colin Smith: Let me give you four examples of taking the life of another person that are clearly forbidden by the scope of this sixth commandment. The first is obviously murder itself. Murder is simply taking the life of your neighbor. I don't want to underestimate this because somewhere in your life, you may come to an experience where you feel so injured, so outraged, that an act of serious violence would not be beyond the scope of your thoughts.

God says don't do that. "Vengeance is mine," says the Lord, "I will repay." Secondly, the whole issue of abortion—taking the life of an unborn neighbor. You see, this is all an exposition of loving your neighbor as yourself. If murder is taking the life of your neighbor, then abortion is taking the life of your unborn neighbor.

Now, why is it wrong to take the life of an unborn child? The answer: because the unborn child is in the image of God. God, the Bible makes clear, has an active relationship already with the child in the womb. He is actively involved in the developing life of the unborn child. God's hand is on the life of the unborn child.

That is why the unborn child should also be of great value to us. This is not a potential life. This is a life with great and eternal potential. Then there's the whole issue of euthanasia—taking the life of an elderly or an infirm neighbor. Euthanasia, of course, involves a decision being made by someone that a person's life is no longer worth living and that some action should be taken to end it.

Now, of course, there is a great difference between ending life and ending treatment. Some of us, I know, have been in situations that have been very agonizing for us in the hospital. It has become obvious that life has ended and that the body of someone we love is being sustained only by treatment and there is no hope of recovery. Ending treatment at some point may be a way of handing a life over to God, to whom that life belongs.

I've found it helpful just to keep in my mind a very important distinction: there is a huge difference between sustaining a life that has been taken by God and taking a life that is being sustained by God. Discerning that line, I know, can be horrendously difficult. But knowing that that line exists is critically important, desperately important for our society. We are neither to sustain a life that God has taken nor to take a life that God has sustained.

Fourthly, suicide, which is taking your own life. Now, you will understand why I said a few moments ago that this is the most difficult in many ways and certainly the most sensitive of all of the commandments because of all that it touches. We read it, we think we know what that is. Then we think about it, we say, "This goes everywhere in our society."

Some of us here know what it is to come to a point where you feel so low that you actually think the world would be better off without you. Others of us have gone through the unspeakable pain of someone we love coming to that conclusion. Now, I'm conscious as I've prayed about today and as I speak right now that there may be some within our five congregations today who feel now precisely at that point.

The thought of taking your life has crossed your mind. You feel that even those who love you would be better off without you. Listen up. It's not true. God has given you life. And as long as God is giving you life, as He is now, it means He wants you here. He wants you here. He wants you here.

He really does. And in the darkness that surrounds you right now, you need to hear that and you need to take it into the very core of your being. Listen, what you call your life is not yours to take. It is the gift of God to you. You're not the owner of this life; you're the trustee of this life. You're the steward of this life. It's not yours to take. It's a life that He's giving to you to live here and to live now.

Now, there are some moments where our minds may become desperately low and very confused. And you know, that is precisely where and why we need clear biblical principles rooted deeply into our minds. There are times when you cannot trust your feelings. Don't trust what you feel right now.

Listen, God will stand with you in your darkness. You say, "I can't feel Him." Of course you can't feel Him; that's the darkness. But He will stand with you. He will not forsake you. He will bring you through. The life that He is giving to you is of irreplaceable value. The fact that it is painful for you now does not in one degree diminish its importance to God. So cherish the life that He is giving to you. Even if you cannot see its value now, make it an act of faith that one day you will in this life.

Because you don't want to stand in the presence of God and there discover what might have been if you'd hung on in faith. There are times when your mind is not clear. Especially when a person is in great pain, give yourself a little bit of space. Trust the principle that God has rooted from His word into your mind and into your heart. This is where you desperately need it. You shall not murder. You're not to do it. You're not to take your neighbor's life, and you're not to take your own. And if God will use that word from His word to help one person hold on, this whole congregation will be deeply thankful.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible Weekend with Pastor Colin Smith, and a message called "Your Struggle for Peace." It's part of a larger series called "The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life." If you ever miss a broadcast in the series or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that at our website, openthebible.org. You can also listen if you have the Open the Bible app. That's free at your app store and it's a great way to listen on demand whenever it fits your schedule. Or again, come and listen online at openthebible.org. Back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Suppose you go through your entire life and you never commit murder, you don't have an abortion, you don't practice euthanasia, and you don't commit suicide. Does that mean that you have kept the sixth commandment? Answer: you've guessed it—no.

Jesus makes it clear, as was read to us from the New Testament as He explains the significance of the sixth commandment, that its scope goes far beyond acts of murder and that it searches out the thoughts and the attitudes of our heart. Think of it this way: it's rather like a train moving down a track. Murder in any of its forms is at the far end of the track. It's at the terminus. Many of us will never go near that station at the end of the track, but all of us have ridden the train somewhere along the line.

There are many stations on this line of conflict. I want to take a moment just to identify three of them very briefly. The first is what I just describe as rudeness. I'm referring here to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 22, where Jesus speaks about someone who gets very angry and He includes this as His explanation of what the sixth commandment means to us. The person getting angry begins to speak abusively and he says, "Raca," which means "you're useless." It's a term of contempt.

Now, we would call that simply rudeness. It's abusive speech or insulting speech. It's the kind of talk that diminishes the value of another person. And Jesus says, you know, another person may be wrong, but they're still made in the image of God. And you don't speak in a way that diminishes the value of that person's life. Remember in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, "Love is not rude." If I speak about or to another person with contempt, I am not loving my neighbor as myself, and I am breaking a dimension of the sixth commandment.

I've mentioned a couple of times the Heidelberg Catechism that deals with each of the commandments. You can find a copy outside afterwards if you're interested to follow through. But I found great light in just reading some of the exposition in question and answer form. It goes through each commandment. Question 105 says, "What is God's will for you in the sixth commandment?" And here's the answer: "I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill..." You see, there's the stations along the track. "...kill my neighbor, not by my thoughts, my words, my looks, or my gestures."

Oh! Oh, we do have that phrase, don't we? "If looks could kill..." Some of us have broken the sixth commandment right there. We have slain a person with a look. The book of Proverbs says that the tongue has the power of life and death. Some of us have said things in a way and with a sharpness that has gone right to the soul of another person in a way that was destructive, and that was never the purpose of God. And the wounds are still there.

Rudeness, hatred. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 15: "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer." Got to listen to that again. The Bible says, "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer." 1 John 3:15. There is no place for hatred towards another person in the life of a follower of Jesus. And let's apply that especially to racial hatred, which surely is the single biggest cause of loss of life in the history of the world. Wars begin again and again and again over issues of racial hatred.

And then thirdly, what I've called recklessness. This is another station along the line of conflict. Listen again to this from the Heidelberg Catechism: "What is God's will for you in the sixth commandment?" Continuing the answer: "I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself." Oh! There's another dimension.

This is all about loving your neighbor as yourself. God has given me the stewardship of a life in His image, and part of caring for that life is that I do not recklessly endanger it. You can break the sixth commandment by neglecting proper sleep, by addiction to work, by improper use of food or of drink, by lack of proper exercise. Ouch, it's coming closer to home.

Some of us may be very, very complacent about the sixth commandment because we say, "I would never take the life of another person," and yet all the time you're killing yourself. A pro-life culture begins with people who value their own lives as a special gift from God and then discover that the same value belongs to the life that God has given to every other person. Beware of the culture that goes with slogans like, "Only the good die young." You see, that's a cheap view of life and it's a breaking of the sixth commandment in the very form of thought. Each of us has to make his or her own decision before God about these things, but you are a steward of a life that God has given to you. It is of unique and irreplaceable value, so handle with care.

And lastly and very briefly, how are we to obey the sixth commandment? We've talked about what it means to break the sixth commandment. I want to end up briefly by reminding us what it means to keep it. The commandments, remember, are warning signs that tell us where danger is on the road, but they're also direction signs that show us the kind of life that we should pursue.

I want just to say these two things then: that the obvious directions in which the sixth commandment points us are, first, that we embrace life, and second, that we pursue peace. Embrace life. When you've seen the magnificence of what life is, embrace it. Ask God to give you a vision of what your life could be. Seize every opportunity to develop yourself. Don't let life pass you by.

Look for ways in which you can be a good steward of every gift that God has given to you. Remember the parable of the talents—what's been entrusted to you is not to be buried; it's to be used for the glory of the One who gave it to you. Look then for ways in which you can enrich the lives of others. Bring blessing from God through you to whoever you can. Live life to the full for God's own glory.

Remember that Jesus said, "I am come that you may have life and that you may have it to the full." Jesus is the life-giver, and there is no greater way to embrace life than to embrace Jesus. The Bible says, "He who has the Son of God has life, and he who does not have the Son of God doesn't have life." You don't have the life that God wants you to know until you've embraced Jesus Christ. God wants you to live. Embrace Jesus. That's where the sixth commandment goes.

And embracing Jesus, pursue peace. Settle disputes, Jesus says, as quickly as you can. That's His application of the sixth commandment. Paul says the same thing in Romans chapter 12: "Inasmuch as it's possible, as far as it depends on you, seek to live at peace with everybody." If there's a way of making peace with integrity, do it. Pursue it. Go for it.

Because Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And here's perhaps the single most important thing that someone needs to hear this morning: He is able to bring peace in regard to the deepest wounds and the worst sins and the biggest regrets of your life. We all need mercy and forgiveness, and God offers that to you in Jesus Christ.

He is the Prince of Peace and He died on the cross, the very center of our faith, so that peace may come from God the Father to you. He had to die because we've broken the commandments. But He died because He wanted that peace to come to you and to me. And you will receive that peace as you embrace this Savior. And embracing Him, pursue the path of peace to which He calls you.

And you know, as I was thinking about this line of conflict and thinking of the image of a train, my mind went back actually to a rather beautiful place that Karen and I go every summer and we walk there. It's a path, it's a beautiful path. There are flowers and there are bushes and there are trees. It is a beautiful path through the mountains that I don't have time to describe to you.

It used to be a railway track. But 50 years ago, they took up the line and now it's the most beautiful walker's path you could ever imagine. And one day when Jesus Christ comes again, He's going to take up the whole line of conflict and He's going to turn it into the path of peace. And under His rule, you will be at peace with yourself. We will be at peace with one another in the full expression of all that that means. Nation will speak peace to nation. The implements of war will be obsolete. And then in a new heaven and in a new earth, released from its groaning, there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain because the Creator is making everything new.

Steve Hiller: What a great message of hope. The Creator is making all things new. You're listening to Pastor Colin Smith and Open the Bible Weekend and a message entitled "Your Struggle for Peace," really an in-depth look at the sixth commandment and how this is a command that, unfortunately, all of us have broken to some degree or another.

Our message is part of a larger series called "The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life." And if you want more information about that series or to get a copy on CD, ask about "The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life" when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or you'll find ordering information online at openthebible.org.

Well, Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. It's your generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you three copies of our very first graphic novel, inspired by Pastor Colin's book "Heaven, How I Got Here: The Story of the Thief on the Cross," plus one copy of the original book. Colin, who is this graphic novel for?

Colin Smith: Well, I'm super excited about this graphic novel. It is a brilliantly illustrated 48-page story. It's got clear and compelling dialogue and it's designed to reach younger people and for anyone who thinks of themselves as being a visual learner. And it tells the story of the thief on the cross, which is really a story that I think everyone needs to know.

It teaches us that entrance into heaven doesn't depend on a person's performance in the Christian life. And I think that's something that everybody needs to grasp, but especially younger people who have grown up in church and yet may not have grasped the heart of the gospel and may be tempted to turn away. I hope that we can get it into the hands of as many younger people and visual learners as possible so that people will understand the marvelous news of God's grace. Jesus opened heaven for the thief on the cross. If He can do that for the thief on the cross, He can do that for any person. There is hope for every person in Jesus Christ. So, who's a young person in your life who needs to understand the grace of God? We'd love for you to be the means of getting the story of God's grace into their hands, and who knows what God will do as a result.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you three copies of "Heaven, How I Got Here: The Story of the Thief on the Cross," the graphic novel version, plus a copy of the original book as our way of saying thank you for your financial support. You can give online at openthebible.org or call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time. Open the Bible Weekend is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: This is Pastor Colin, and I love the story of the thief on the cross because it's the best story we have to help people understand grace. Many people have the idea that if a person was to get into heaven, they'd get there by living a good enough life. Well, the thief on the cross hadn't lived a good life, and he wasn't in a position to start living a good life either.

But Jesus said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." If the thief could get into heaven, so can everyone you know and will ever meet. "Heaven, How I Got Here" is a compelling 60-minute film in which Stephen Baldwin portrays the thief on the cross in a one-person play. We've seen God use this film to help many trust in Jesus as the thief did. So, who is there in your life who needs to understand grace? For more information or to watch this film for free, visit openthebible.org/heaven. That's openthebible.org/heaven.