Let’s start this morning by taking a little informal survey.
-Anyone here ever had money stolen from them?
-Ok, how about tools, anyone ever have tools stolen, how about borrowed and not returned? -Anyone ever have a bicycle stolen.
-Anyone ever have a car stolen. -What about having something stolen from your car. -Anyone here ever have their home broken into?
There is something intensely personal about having an object stolen from you, it is a violation and you feel hurt and confused. Who would do something like this? Maybe you felt angry. Anger is often an emotion that you feel after you’ve been violated. So to a certain degree I understand the sign that was posted that said, “This property is protected by a pit bull with aids”
Here’s the flip side, a little more personal here.
-How many people here have ever stolen? Now I realize that I’m asking the wrong crowd, but maybe if we look into the distant past. Maybe candy as a child, or money from your mother’s purse or father’s wallet.
-Or maybe it was a toy from a store?
-Maybe it was office supplies from work, or a little creative accounting on your tax return.
-Or maybe, it was taking a grape and eating it in the produce section of HEB. Anyone fall into those categories? Could I say today that everyone here falls into one of those two categories as having been stolen from or has stolen from someone else?
We all have something lurking inside of us that is fascinated with the concept of getting something for nothing. Something that lives deep inside that says “Boy, if I could get that for nothing that would be great,” which explains why so many shoplifters who are caught don’t need to shoplift. They aren’t doing it out of necessity they are doing it for the thrill. And so God is saying here, “Don’t let that desire to get something for nothing win out.”
And so here we are at the eighth commandment, part of a series that we started back almost in the last century as we have been looking at the Guidelines for Christianity. Do you think that this commandment doesn’t apply to you? You don’t consider yourself a thief? But if you think back a few weeks ago, you didn’t think that you were a murderer either.
On the cover of an old Saturday Evening Post is a picture of an encounter in a butcher shop. A woman shopper and a butcher face each other with a turkey on the scales between them. Each has the smile of someone who is in on a private joke. A careful look shows the butcher’s heavy thumb on the scales, while the customer pushes up on them with a forefinger.
Were they thieves? Neither would rob a bank or steal a car. Each would resent it if accused of stealing, but neither saw anything wrong with a deception worth only a few cents for either of them.
In United States department stores, pilferage exceeds $4 billion a year. One estimate says that of every fifty-two customers a day one carries away at least one unpaid-for item, and the number is rising. Then there are the tax cheats, the double-dippers on welfare, the millions stolen through telephone and computer misuse, and those who steal from their employers.
Schemes, scams and swindles are a way of life today. Sophisticated deal makers like several recent high-powered executives, and penny-ante con artists invade every community.
A man on crutches hobbled over to a passerby and asked for money. The pedestrian handed him a dollar bill with the remark, “Cheer up. It would be much worse if you were blind.” “I know,” he responded. “I was blind last week and kept getting phony money!” Every rip-off costs you and me. Honest consumers pay the price for this dishonesty and cheating, and covering the cost is no bargain!
Probably the most graphic of all of Jesus’ parables is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story begins in Luke 10:30: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. The robbers’ attitude was, “What’s yours is mine: I’ll take it.”
That’s the attitude of the businessperson who pads an expense account. Those who cheat on their income tax, or purchase goods on credit with no possibility or intention of paying for them are also guilty. Cheating on a test robs other students as well as yourself. “You’ve worked hard for your score, but what’s yours is mine, and I will take the grade I don’t deserve.”
It’s a pervasive attitude. A wife complained to her husband one evening, “The housekeeper has stolen two of our brand new towels.” He replied, “Well, some people are just like that. Which ones did she take?” The wife said, “The ones we took from the hotel on our last vacation.”
Look at a second attitude from the parable of the Good Samaritan: “A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31-32). These men illustrate the attitude, “What’s mine is mine, and I’ll keep it.”
You can steal by doing nothing. The person who can work, but chooses to live off the government is a thief. The person who fails to give a day’s work for a day’s pay steals. It is robbery to deprive another person of opportunity. When we allow inequity and injustice, we rob the poor. Unfair laws and favoritism are a form of stealing with the attitude, “I’ve got mine, and you can go butt a stump.”
A third attitude is portrayed in Jesus’ parable. The Good Samaritan exemplified the attitude that Jesus approves: “A Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have’ (Luke 10:33-35).
“What’s mine is yours; let’s share it.” This is the proper attitude toward money and possessions. Someone said, “Money isn’t everything, but it’s way ahead of whatever is in second place.” Another said, “Money won’t buy happiness, but it will sure keep you in touch with your kids.”
We need to remember that our use of wealth and possessions today will have consequences tomorrow. There was a businessman who was very generous with his church. He lost his business and all his wealth in the depression, and became a custodian in the very church where he had once given large amounts of money. It was all he had left. He expressed the ideal of Christian stewardship when he said with pride, “What I spent I had; what I saved I lost; what I gave I have.”
The proper attitude is really, “What I have is God’s, let’s share it.” God gives us money and ability to use for His glory and to extend His Kingdom. To do less is robbery.
The Bible does not have a problem with us having “Stuff”. It does, however, lay out the right way and the wrong way to acquire stuff. The first correct way to gain property or money is to Work For It. Ephesians 4:28 “If you are a thief, quit stealing. Be honest and work hard, so you will have something to give to people in need.” So the first acceptable way to acquire property or stuff is to work, get paid and buy the stuff you need.
And if you acquire property in this way as a side benefit you will develop self respect, self esteem and confidence. Most of us will never forget the feeling of accomplishment we had when we purchased our first car or first home. Look what I’ve done!
The second Biblically acceptable way of acquiring stuff is through Shrewd Investments or trading. Remember Jesus’ commendation of the good servants in Matthew chapter 25. The master had given them a certain amount of money and they had traded and invested it while he was away on business and when he returned they were able to present him with the profits of their investments. Do you recall what the master told them? Matthew 25:21 “Wonderful!” his master replied. “You are a good and faithful servant. I left you in charge of only a little, but now I will put you in charge of much more. Come and share in my happiness!” And so honest shrewd trading is an acceptable means of acquiring stuff.
A third Biblically acceptable means for acquiring property is through Believing Prayer. Do you remember how Jesus taught us to pray Matthew 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread. He was telling us that it was alright to pray for physical needs.
From time to time in our lives we have seen God intervene and provide us with what we needed. He gave us certain personal property as a gift from his hand. Most of us can remember a time in our lives that we had to pray for a financial need, or transportation, or perhaps food, for something which we needed and didn’t have and God broke into our lives and in a miraculously way provided those needs. He does that sometimes. And so believing prayer and trusting God is a biblically acceptable way to acquire personal property. So diligent labor, shrewd trading, and believing prayer are all acceptable means for acquiring personal property.
But there are some warnings that go with each of those things. To the person who diligently labors for what they need, God says don’t get carried away with your labor and become a workaholic. For those who are trading, he warns that you’d better not neglect kingdom priorities because you’ve become so caught up in making deals. And for those who are praying for their needs he says makes sure that your motives are pure, don’t let your prayers degenerate into a self-centered home shopping list. There is more to prayer then simply asking for things. There is the worship aspect, the thanksgiving side of prayer and praise.
There is nothing wrong with having property, if you acquire it in one of the biblically acceptable ways. But there are ways to obtain property that are not biblically acceptable. The first way that you can obtain property inappropriately is through Theft, good old fashion robbery. Just taking what doesn’t belong to you.
But there are subtler ways of thievery, which seem acceptable for us to get involved in and obtain property through. Some people borrow company supplies: paper, postage, pens; you know what I mean. Or company gas, or expense money. What about borrowing a neighbor’s hedge trimmers, shovel, casserole dish and forgetting to give it back. Borrowing a friend’s book or cd and it sort of becomes your own. These are all subtle forms of seizure. And they are wrong.
Maybe you need to look around your home or office or yard and see if you have things that don’t belong to you and return them, maybe if they can’t be returned they will have to be replaced. And instead of just taking them back and saying you’re sorry why not tell them why, that you are growing in Jesus Christ and because of what you heard in your church that you are doing this. Sometimes people don’t just need to hear about your faith they need to see it.
A second inappropriate way to obtain stuff is through Deceit. Proverbs 20:23 “The Lord hates dishonest scales and dishonest weights.” So don’t cheat! 3500 years ago guys doctored their scales to cheat their customers. Who would have thought? And 3500 years later it’s still going on. You read in the paper where service stations have been charged with not keeping honest pumps, and we all have experienced or know someone who has experienced deceit at the hands of a less then scrupulous mechanic.
Deceit happens and a lot of times the people who are perpetrating it don’t even think it’s wrong. What was it P.T. Barnum said “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And maybe that’s true but we don’t have to be trying to take them. There are people out there who prey on the elderly or the gullible and when they charge an exorbitant amount to fix a roof, or a car or a furnace that doesn’t need fixing then they might as well break into their clients homes. This type of stuff goes on all the time, false advertising, false claims, hype exaggeration, a salesman saying you need this extra insurance.
Deception is just a sophisticated way of stealing or obtaining someone else’s money or property and it is a violation of the eighth commandment and God says it’s wrong.
So the eighth commandment prohibits seizure, it prohibits deceit and let me add one other inappropriate way to obtain things that don’t belong to you and that is Defrauding Someone. You say what’s that. You defraud someone when you withhold something from them when it is rightfully due. I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to people who have owned their own business and they’ve told me that the major struggle they have is with
• people who don’t pay their bills on time,
• they didn’t pay when they promised they would,
• they didn’t pay according to the terms. Many times it was because people didn’t pay when it was due that the company ends up going belly up.
One person commented and said those people are thieves, flat out thieves, they stole the interest that money could have generated—they stole the capital it could have purchased. They stole my product and my money for 60 or 120 days or whatever. Our own government agencies will hold payment up to 120 days past due before paying.
When you hold on to a payment past the terms that you agreed to, when you stall your landlord with the rent check, when your car payment is late you are stealing by defrauding. You are withholding what rightfully belongs to others. When you run into a car in a parking lot and don’t leave a note with your name and phone number, you’re stealing. When you don’t claim all your income on your income tax, or you don’t give your employer a day’s work for a day’s pay you are stealing by defrauding.
And so let’s go one step further and talk about the ultimate act of defrauding, the ultimate act of withholding what rightfully belongs to someone else. Do you know what I’m talking about here? I’m talking about defrauding God, about us keeping what rightfully belongs to Him—the life giver, the salvation giver, the grace giver, the heaven giver. Some of us defraud God of what is His.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi 3:8-10 “You people are robbing me, your God. And, here you are, asking, “How are we robbing you?”
You are robbing me of the offerings and of the ten percent that belongs to me. That’s why your whole nation is under a curse. I am the Lord All-Powerful, and I challenge you to put me to the test. Bring the entire ten percent into the storehouse, so there will be food in my house. Then I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with blessing after blessing.”
When we’ve been adopted into God’s family we realize that life will never be the same. And God says “when you come to me for salvation you bring everything you have to the table, because if I’m not Lord of all then I’m not Lord at all.”
And when we accept the salvation that God offers, and as we grow in Christ and learn his word we discover that God tells us that all of our resources belong to him, everything we have, everything we are. And God in his graciousness says it all belongs to me, but I’m going to let you use 90% of it. All I’m asking for is 10% to run my church, which is the local church which you call home.
But throughout the history of the Christian Church countless numbers of Christians have done something unthinkable, they have violated and frustrated God’s entire economic plan, when they have taken that first tenth that God has asked for and they have defrauded God of that amount by taking what is the Lords, and spent it on themselves. They’ve taken what was supposed to be spent on God’s work, and they bought toys and trinkets, and bought houses and clothes and gone on vacation and bought computers with it and God says “I’ve been robbed.”
We spoke earlier about how you feel when you realize that you’ve been robbed. Whether you’ve been robbed by seizure, deceit or defrauding you feel violated. And that’s when a stranger did it, someone you didn’t know. How would you feel if it was someone you knew, someone you trusted, someone you loved, and someone you thought loved you? How much more would it hurt? Can you imagine how God feels when his own children defraud him?
And God says that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, you do what you’re supposed to do and I’ll bless you. “Thou shalt not steal.”
