Donotsteal
NO THEFT EXODUS 20:15
This morning, we return back to our series on the Ten Commandments (Ten Words or Pronouncements). I want to remind you once again that the Ten Commandments are divided into two tables. The first table consists of four commandments dealing with our relationship with the Lord, while the second table consists of the last six commandments dealing with our relationship with others. You could sum up the Law and the Prophets in the Great Commandment given by our Lord and Savior, “You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul and you are to love your neighbor as yourself.”
So this morning, we are going to look at the eighth commandment which says You shall not steal. In essence, this commandment shows respect for persons and a person’s possessions. There are over 10 million acts of theft and robbery in the United States alone every year. The crime statistics and the public cost of stealing and robbery are, in light of those kinds of numbers, enormous.
Millions of dollars are lost every year in this country over the theft of goods and services. One estimate says that 1 out of every 52 shopper’s carries something out of the supermarket for which they haven’t paid. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 4 million people are caught shoplifting every year. But for every one caught, 35 others get away with it. This means that there are over 140 million incidents of shoplifting every year in America! What’s really tragic is that only 10% of all shoplifters come from low incomes, 70% are middle class and 20% are classified as wealthy.
These facts are astounding! America appears to be a country of thieves. I suppose that if everyone who was guilty of theft were arrested, there would be no jails to hold them, nor arresting officers to lock them up! One new hotel reported that in their 10 months of operation, they lost 38,000 spoon, 18,000 towels, 355 silver coffee pots, 1,500 silver finger bowls and 100 Bible to thieves. In fact, American business reports that goods and services are approximately 15% higher than they would be were stealing not so epidemic.
So God gave this commandment to the children of Israel in the wilderness before they entered the Promise Land. Again, I remind you that this commandment is comprehensive like all the other commandments and it is relevant for believers today. If you notice the commandment is not specific in what you won’t steal, from whom you want steal, and when you won’t steal. In fact, it does not even mention why you should not steal. The reason is that you should not steal anything at anytime from anyone.
Ligon Duncan said, “Stealing is a sin against the providence of God. It is a sign that one lacks trust in the Lord to provide. Also, it is a sin against the image of God because it hurts the person and the community.”
Let me provide you a few examples throughout the Old Testament against stealing. I want to remind you that this term is broad. In Exodus 21: 16, we read, “Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” So here the issue is kidnapping another person created in the image of God.
Over one chapter Exodus 22 beginning in verse 1 there are laws about restitution. Here one is forbidden from stealing another’s livestock such as ox or sheep. In verse 5, man is forbidden to allow his animal loose in another man’s field to graze. In verse 7, if a man allows another to take care of their goods and something is stolen, then the one whose possession it is in must come near to God and show whether or not he has put his hand on the person’s property. In verse 10, livestock is put in the possession of another to take care of for a time. In verse 14, a thing borrowed must be returned like it was.
Turn forward in your Bibles to Leviticus 6 verses 1-7. Again, the issue is making restitution for something that was stolen through robbery or oppression or something found which was lost and lied about. The person caught should make restitution plus 20% and a guilt offering to be forgiven.
Finally, turn forward to Leviticus 19, verse 13. This commandment even required fair treatment of domestic help. The eighth commandment requires a fair and generous of low-income help. Listen to Leviticus 19:13, "You shall not oppress your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning." You get the point. If people are living hand to mouth, and you pay them cash or you barter in goods, and you hold that payment overnight, that could be critical in their case, living hand to mouth. It would give you real power over them, a little pull. But you're not to do it. You are to pay them in a timely fashion. In short, the Old Testament forbids all manner of stealing under this command, burglary, kidnapping, robbery, stealing, theft, white-collar crime, and wrongful treatment of people in economic relationships. It requires that we respect our neighbor’s life, liberty and property. Yes, this commandment establishes property rights. And in sum, God is commanding us in His word here to refrain from any manner of depriving our neighbor what belongs to him, whether it's his life or whether it's his property.
Yet, the Old Testament is not the only place that you will find a command not to steal. If you turn to the New Testament there are several passages that deal with the subject of stealing. Just like the Old Testament, the New Testament views stealing as a sin against God. In fact, the New Testament states that stealing is a matter of the heart. Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). In other words, Jesus is getting to the root cause of the problem and the root cause is a matter of the heart.
What are reasons that people steal? I can think of a few. One is the issue of greed. Our culture thrives on this. Greed is excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves. I have got to have what my neighbor has. Another reason people steal is selfishness. In other words, you do not care who or how you might hurt someone as long as you get what you want when you want it. You put yourself as the number one priority. Both greed and selfishness are condemned in the Bible.
Some people steal because they lack confidence in God providing for their need. They find themselves in a pinch and do not trust God to provide for them at the right time.
In the New Testament, believers are instructed not to steal because it does not match the life change that has been brought about by a relationship with Christ. In Matthew 19, there is the story of the rich young ruler who approaches Jesus and is asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus said, “You are to keep the commandments.” So the rich young ruler asks, “Which ones?” Jesus said, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:18). Here Jesus gives the second table of the Ten Commandments and makes a link that the way we love our neighbor is by keeping these commands.
Paul does the same thing in Romans 13:9 saying that the life of a believer is not a person who steals or covets, but loves his neighbor. Again, if you love others than you will not steal from them.
In demonstrating a changed life as a result of repentance, John the Baptist answered the question that some were acquiring of him because they received the message. In Luke 3, he preached that the kingdom of God is near and as a result the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
The New Testament views obedience to this command as part of the life-change that comes when God gives you new life in Jesus Christ, when someone is regenerated by the grace of God, when someone is changed by the Holy Spirit. For instance, turn to Ephesians 4:28. Paul, in contrasting the way we were and the way we are now in Jesus Christ, says this, "He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with the one who has need." He's contrasting the way some Christians were before they met Christ, embraced Him, and were saved by Him, and the way they are as those who are filled by the Spirit. He says the same things to Christian slaves in Titus 2:8-10. "Remember," he says to those slaves, "Don't pilfer, but show all good faith so that you adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect." In other words, he is saying to these Christian slaves, the fact that you refrain from stealing from your master will be a witness to your master for the truth of your conversion and to the grace of our God and savior.
Peter and Paul said those who are thieves and swindlers and covetous and revilers will not inherit the kingdom of God. They said that some of them were exactly that, but they are not anymore. In fact, coming to Christ is a life-changing experience. God has not saved us to leave us as we are but to transform us into the image of His Son Jesus Christ. So a mark of being a Christian is that you do not steal.
Now that you understand the command, I want to share with you a couple of things that I believe are implied in this command. One is that if something is stolen from you then you have a right to own it. In other words, God gives us a right of ownership. Can I remind you that everything you own comes from the hand of God? James says every good and perfect gift comes from above. God gives you the ability to accumulate possessions and wealth. So when we steal from another, we are not only sinning against that person, but God Himself. Remember, David with Bathsheba. He not only broke the eighth commandment of taking what did not belong to him, he broke the sixth commandment of killing her husband, he broke the seventh commandment of adultery, he broke the ninth commandment of bearing false testimony and he broke the tenth commandment of coveting what was not his.
The second thing is that this individual right to own property is not absolute. What do you mean by that? Well, when God put Adam in the garden, he placed him there as a steward because God owned the garden. The Psalmist says, “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). Also, Scripture says all gold and silver belong to the Lord as well as the cattle on a thousand hills. Skip Ryan said, “In capitalism, the money is yours to do with it what you want. In socialism, it belongs to the state, and the state uses it for what the community needs. In Christianity, it’s God, and it must be used as He directs.”
Again, I remind you that it is the Lord Himself giving these commands to His people. Therefore, He possesses the right to call us to obedience. One man said, “If God is dead, then all things are permissible.” So if God does not exist, then there is no basis for the Law. But God does exist, so therefore this law is binding and authoritative for us as Christians.
With all this being said and knowing that this command is broad in nature, I want to spend some time drawing application from this commandment. Many Christians may not think that this command applies to them, but in very subtle ways we can break this command. So I hope it is your desire to remain clean before the Lord and the way we do that is by drawing application.
The first area that we need to consider in applying this command is our work life. Defrauding in business or having a shady work ethic can destroy your witness as a Christian. Stealing was a problem among the believers in Ephesus because Paul told them to stop and labor for what is good (Eph. 4:28). Therefore, we are to work in an honorable way and put in a full day’s work because we are working for the Lord rather than for men.
Yet, employee theft is a common day occurrence. Last year, the national report of security survey reported a shrinkage of 47% due to employee theft. People do this by taking thing home, selling things without their employers knowledge and pocketing the money, taking kickbacks, falsifying time records, wasting time while at work, etc.
There is a story of Richard Halverson, the former chaplain of the U. S. Senate who was meeting with a Christian businessman who owned a number of automobile dealerships somewhere in the Virginia/Maryland area, and the man came to him and he said, "Dr Halverson, I want to be a witness to Christ. I think that I'm going to buy a number of New Testaments and we're going to hand them out to all my employees and we're going to hand them out to all the people who come and visit my automobile dealerships." Well, unfortunately this businessman was rather known in the Washington, DC, area as a person who didn't treat his employees well and oftentimes didn't treat his clients well. And Richard Halverson, I don't know how he got the braveness to say this, but he just said, "Brother, you know, it might be better, instead of handing out New Testaments, if you treated your employees right and you dealt honestly with those who came to do business with you. That would be a better witness." It's a great idea to hand out new testaments, but you've got to be honest in your business dealings to be a good witness.
Employers are not to cheat their employees by not offering them a fair wage. When people are underpaid, overworked and treated badly, then this is a form of stealing as well.
Another form of stealing is students cheating in school. As students you need to learn to do your own work and not depend on others to do the labor for you. Poll after poll reveals that many students cheat every year in school.
One area of stealing that has grown with the expansive capabilities of the Internet is plagiarism, "the misappropriation of someone else's work" [Ryken 173]. It happens when a report or term paper is assigned, and rather than preparing ahead of time and doing the work, the plagiarist copies all or part of someone else's work and passes it off as his own. Thousands of term papers are accessible on the Internet.
Gambling is a violation of this commandment. Gambling always, not sometimes, gambling always hurts ourselves and hurts our neighbors. It hurts ourselves if we lose. It hurts our neighbors if we win. For gambling is not built on a principle of ‘win-win.’ It's ‘win-lose.’ And it's not only ‘win-lose,’ it's thousands must lose for one to win. It always hurts ourselves and hurts our neighbors. The principle of gambling is totally different from the stock market. Some people often say that the stock market is nothing more than gambling. Wrong! Totally different principles. Not that everything in the stock market is perfect, but listen, gambling is pure redistribution. It takes from others and gives to one or a few. The stock market is wealth-creation, but everybody usually benefits together. Your doing well oftentimes helps others do better in the market. Wealth-creation is totally different from redistribution. Conservatives hate redistribution when the government does it. But they'll often defend redistribution under the rubric of gambling. In gambling, for one person to do well, thousands must lose. In gambling, those who are least able to afford it are most injured. Gambling preys on the poor and harms those who are least able to afford it.
In our business dealings, such as paying our debts that we owe to others or making fraudulent claims against our insurance companies or refusing to report honestly your income for taxes or selling an inferior product and on and on, I could list various other ways one can steal.
The last form of stealing that I want to mention this morning is in the area of Christian giving. The Lord asked a strange question of the post-exile Jews. "Will a man rob God?" Well, of course not, they would retort. But the Lord declared, "Yet you are robbing Me!" They asked how they could be robbing God. He replied, "In tithes and offerings." Whether one practices tithing as a starting place for Christian giving or not, the principle is quite clear. Each of us, as did the early Christians, are to lay aside as God has prospered us so that we return to the Lord a portion of our living, demonstrating our love and gratitude to Him as our Provider. The Lord told Israel to test Him in the matter of bringing their tithes into the storehouse. They would see that God would open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing upon them as they were faithful.
Have you heard the Paul Harvey story about the lady who dug a turkey out of her freezer that had been in there for 23 years? She calls up the Butterball Turkey hotline. She wants to know whether that turkey is still edible after 23 years. Well, the butterball turkey hotline man had the answer. If it had been at zero degrees for 23 years, yes it was safe and edible, but it would taste like cardboard. Throw it away. Her response, "Good, that's what I thought. We'll give it to the church." Is that your attitude in giving to the church? The leftovers?
Some people might say that tithes and offerings are Old Testament and therefore does not apply to them. So let me ask you a question. In the New Testament, does that mean you give less or more? What's the principle of application to the New Testament? Is the law less comprehensive in the New Testament or more? It's always more. Um, now you're thinking about going back to the Old Testament tithe. Are you robbing God? You need to make that right today.
At Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, George Washington and his troops were in utterly desperate straits. He appealed to the government of Pennsylvania for help. Jacob DeHaven, a staunch believer in the revolutionary cause, lived near Valley Forge. hearing of Washington's appeal, he loaned him $50,000 in gold and $400,000 in supplies. The army survived the winter, but after the war DeHaven was never repaid. Now his descendants are trying to collect. They claim that the loan, compounded at 6% interest daily, amounts to $141.6 billion. In one sense, all the money in the world could never repay DeHaven for what he did. In reality, he saved the cause of freedom for all America. There's another debt all of us owe that we can never repay. It is the price Jesus Christ paid to give us liberty from the bondage of sin. The problem of stealing, the problem of a violation of the eighth commandment, is a matter of the heart and so the solution is found in the heart with Jesus Christ. If you, in thinking through some of the applications of this sin today, realize that you are a thief, that there is a pattern of stealing in your life, it may be respectable stealing, it may be secret stealing, it may never have been uncovered by anybody else, but there's a pattern in your life, then there's only one solution.
The only relief for any of us in the face of God's law is in the cross of Christ, where the guilt of sinners met eternal justice in the perfect Lamb of God crucified between two thieves. One of those thieves, a man who regularly broke the 8th commandment, found forgiveness through Christ by the simplest cry of faith in dependence upon the dying Savior. May we know that same forgiveness and the new life purchased through the crucified and risen Christ.