14th November 2025

14th November 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 20:13)


Message (Alan Burke)


What is your temper like? When the wains don’t listen, when you don’t get your way, when someone cuts you off in traffic, when you’re hurt by someone or you hit your thumb with a hammer? There can be righteous anger as Jesus exemplified that wasn’t sinful when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple, when rituals were prioritised over human need etc but there is also sinful anger. Jesus makes that point in Matthew 5. He says “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Mt 5:21–22). 


His point is that murder is not only the physical act but includes anger and expressions of anger. For those in Jesus day they would have had a fairly similar definition to most us, the belief that as long as they didn’t kill someone, they didn’t allow their anger to overflow into the action of killing someone that they were ok. 


But my anger, your anger when it overflows to you giving them a piece of your mind then that is in the category of murder. The Sixth Commandment when rightly understood means that if we are angry with our brother we are guilty of breaking the commandment, we are deserving of the penalty prescribed for murder. Now you might think, hold on here, that’s a wee bit excessive, surely God is being a wee bit extreme. 


But murder so often follows the anger, the hate that has first sprouted and grown in ones’ heart and we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We might have liked to think that this commandment is something that we have all kept but we have not. Keeping this commandment just like any of the commandments is not within our ability as fallen sinful people. This command requires of us to have a high regard for life, it should also be seen in the positive, for it is a command that protects and preserves life. It speaks of the importance of life whether it is from the elderly resident who requires round the clock care, or the child who is in their mothers tummy, they bear the image of God and their life should be preserved for they are of value.


This command speaks of our attitude. Jesus in Matthew 5 made it clear that our attitudes matter, if we have ever got angry with anyone then we have broken this commandment. The truth is that none of us have kept the commandments perfectly, our own righteousness is worthless before the Lord. The law of God deals not only with the action but with the heart and one day we will all come before the Lord Jesus and he will be our judge, he will be our judge and he will be our accuser. 


We have all failed to do this yet there is good news is of course is that our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ was killed on our behalf so that we might be forgiven for our sin. He bore the wrath of God and did what we could not do by keeping the law of God perfectly and died in our place. And in response to what he has done we are compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving whatever grievances, forgiving as the LORD forgave us and we put on love, the ultimate example is the Love that has been shown to us through Christ Jesus our LORD (Col 3).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q19 What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
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