Our scripture today is taken from the book of Exodus, the Gospels, and Acts chapter 5. I invite you to join me in reading it as it is found printed in our worship folder. Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not steal.
Jesus said, Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs in some other way, he is a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. Jesus said, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and might have it abundantly.
But a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said to Sapphira, Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the LORD to the test? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they shall carry you out as well. And she fell immediately and breathed her last.
I read this past week of a way to get rid of one's garbage without having to pay for it. During the Refuse Workers' Strike in New York City a few years ago, one desperate householder discovered this method. He gift-wrapped his garbage and left it on the front seat of his unlocked car all day long. By evening, it was gone. We smile at his ingenuity, but we must also confess the tragedy of it. Stealing has become that predictable.
From shoplifting to credit card misuse, and burglaries to computer crimes, stealing has become a way of life for many in our society. And we all pay for it. Its cost is built into the prices that we pay and the taxes that we complain about. Some kinds of stealing have been considered acceptable. Not so bad. It is said about them, quote, if no one in particular is hurt, then what's wrong, close quote.
And so there are some people who wouldn't steal a car but who don't feel guilty about padding their expense accounts. There are those who would never mug somebody in a park, but they wouldn't think twice about stealing time from their employers. In whatever form stealing takes place, God says in Exodus 20, verse 15, you shall not steal. That very command is a recognition of the God-given right to possess property. It is a blow against communism. Ultimately, all things belong to God.
He then gives the privilege of stewardship possession to mankind. He may at any point that he chooses interfere with that possession, as he did with Job, for example. But God absolutely forbids another person from interfering with the right to possess property. Stealing is sin in the eyes of God. What is stealing? How is it defined? Webster puts it this way. Stealing is to take or appropriate without permission, dishonestly or unlawfully, especially in a secret or surreptitious manner.
Two or three years ago now, our family went to bed in one hot August evening. The fan was blowing upstairs to cover up the night sounds so that we might go to sleep more quickly. About one o'clock in the morning, I thought I heard the doorbell. I wasn't sure if it was in my dream or if it was the nightmare of reality. I tried to ignore it, and then I heard it again. I got up and went down to the door to see who might be there. A little frightened.
When I got there, I looked through the glass and saw red lights flashing out in front of our house. And so I quickly awakened from my stupor and opened the door to find a police officer there. He said, we've been trying to wake you for the last 10 minutes. I said, I'm sorry, and I explained the situation. He said, we caught these people coming out of your house, and we want you to identify the things that they have in the bag.
What had happened was one of our neighbors up the street got up about 1230 to get a drink of water and looked out his window. And it just so happened that as he did, he saw a car come down our street slowly. He watched it. Two men got out, another man drove on. The two walked into a garage about a half a block away. And so he called the police, and they came quietly and staked out our street.
It wasn't too long until the two men came out of that garage, tried another one, it was locked, and then came to ours. I had carelessly left the door unlocked. And so they watched them go into our garage. In a few minutes later, they came out down our driveway, and they arrested them that fast. One of them tried to get away, but there was an officer of the K-9 unit there, and he got his partner on that person. And it wasn't long before all three of them were rounded up.
So I went out and looked in the bag, and sure enough, here was some food from our freezer as well as some other assorted items from our garage, all worth at least a total of 49 or 50 cents. Burglary struck home to me on that particular evening, and I understood the invasion of privacy that it is. None of us condones that kind of stealing. We rightly condemn it.
But before we condemn it too vociferously, perhaps we should think again regarding the question of Romans 2, 21, where it says, You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? Well, we would quickly avow that we do not steal. And perhaps we don't in the blatant sense that I've described in my illustration from home. But I'd like for you to think with me this morning regarding the fact that stealing may be a little more broadly practiced than we usually think.
I believe that stealing includes a number of activities, some of which are deemed acceptable in our society. For example, number one, I believe that excessive profits and excessive professional fees are a form of thievery.
In other words, charging more than a fair price for product or service, and thus taking from another's goods without an equitable return, is a form of thievery, whether it is practiced by oil companies, banks, retailers, or a professional to charge excessively above what is reasonable is a form, however subtly, of stealing. You and I are often not in a position to be able to say for certain whether this corporation or that company or this person may be stealing in this sense.
We don't know all the facts that are involved in why the fee is what it is. A person who's involved in giving that service or producing that product has to answer before God really as to whether it is stealing or not. But I submit to you that it can be stealing to charge excessively in these matters. You say, well, that's just good old-fashioned capitalism. Listen, I believe in capitalism, but capitalism has a problem. The problem with capitalism is not the system. It's the sinners who use it.
The problem with capitalism is the greed of the human heart. I believe that nations can be guilty in a similar way of taking advantage of weaker nations, perhaps charging them excessively or exporting their raw materials, refusing to allow them to export their manufactured goods, and then returning to them that nation's own manufactured goods at an exorbitant price. I think the United States can be guilty and has been guilty of this, of in effect robbing third world countries.
And there are many nations that practice this kind of imperialism or colonialism, take advantage of others by charging excessively or taking advantage. That is a form of thievery. Furthermore, I believe that the failure to pay a fair wage is stealing. Or to put in the time for which one is paid, or to do adequate work during one's hours is a form of stealing. James puts it this way in his book, come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.
The pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been withheld by you cries out against you. And the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. Failure to pay what is due to one's employees, or for an employee not to give his employer fair work for the pay is thievery. A third form of subtle stealing is that of failure to pay one's debts. The careless spending of more than one earns often results in debt.
Let me say that I think Christians should show compassion to those who legitimately cannot pay their bills. In Matthew 18, 21 the verse is following, Jesus gave a parable that was designed to emphasize the importance of forgiveness. But there is a second lesson in that parable in the fact that we are to be compassionate and forgiving to those who legitimately cannot pay their bills.
The problem is that there are those who do this by design in our day, who deliberately charge up their accounts and never plan to pay them. That is a breaking of the eighth commandment. Extortion likewise is stealing. Extortion is the use or the threat of force to wrest from another person money. The soldiers and tax gatherers in Jesus' day were famous for this.
Some of them listened to John the Baptist preach his message of repentance and inquired what the fruits of repentance might be for them. He replied, do not take money from anyone by force. Extortion is a way of stealing. Likewise business fraud is a form of thievery. In Proverbs 11, 1 the Lord says a false balance is an abomination to him. In other words a commercial scale, a balance that has been altered or tampered with in order to give extra money to the seller.
That false balance is an abomination to God because it is fraudulent. Whether it is investment schemes or false travel agencies or as happened notably in our community a few months ago, attorneys who take their clients money for personal use. These things are all forms of fraud. Not only are they illegal, they are sin in the eyes of God. I think likewise that the sales tactic of bait and switch is fraud. You know the tactic? Come in and buy this piano for $295. It's a great deal.
And you go in and look at it, it's a piece of junk. But you're in the store now and so the salesman takes you from that piano to the one that costs $995 and tries to sell you that one. It's called the old bait and switch tactic. That's fraud and it's sin. We are today seeing a lot of television advertisements, mail orders that are misleading. I remember seeing one for a personal clothes dryer that could be used in your home or apartment.
Did not require installation of electricity or gas or vents. That was yours for only what, $19.95? And what was it? A 10 foot piece of clothes line and some clothes pins? That was your personal clothes dryer? You see that kind of fraud is stealing from people and God condemns it. Likewise bribery is included as stealing. In Exodus 23, 8 God says, you shall not take a bribe for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just.
Whether it be for a traffic ticket or a political vote. Bribery is wrong. It is stealing. If it is not stealing money, it is stealing influence. And then we get these brochures that come to our offices that say, order this product for your office and receive this personal free gift. What is that if not a subtle form of bribery? It's not a free gift. Don't kid yourself. The office is going to pay for that free gift that you get. That is stealing.
We don't like to think of it that way perhaps, but it is nonetheless. A seventh form of stealing that we see too frequently, even in churches, is the duplicating of copyrighted materials without permission of the copyright holder. I recognize that the laws can be difficult to interpret in this area, but we must be very careful about that.
I know of one local church here in the Twin Cities area that thought they had appropriate permission to copy choruses, but last year they were nonetheless fined by one publisher nearly $30,000. The Archdiocese of Chicago paid over a million dollars in fines to a publisher for this same reason. You may feel, well listen, I've paid enough for that. I think I should have the right to copy it and use it freely as I want to.
Well, I understand the sentiments that are involved there, but we have to realize that what has been printed or what has been composed and copyrighted is the living of the person who did the work. And for us to abuse that work is to steal from their livelihood. It is a breaking of the Eighth Commandment. Stealing that all of us face is that of inflation. Inflation robs us of our wages and our goods. It's usually due to the government spending out of control and borrowing vast amounts of money.
At the present time, inflation is low. How would you like somebody to come and steal three and a half cents out of every dollar that you earn this year? Well, it's going to happen. Inflation may be low, but it's a thief. God also tells us that stealing is to take advantage of the poor. You look a little too sedate there, so would you open your Bibles please to Proverbs 22 and look at a couple of verses with me.
Proverbs 22, verses 22 and 23. Do not rob the poor because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate, for the Lord will plead their case and take the life of those who rob them. Who is the avenger of the poor and the oppressed? Well, I'll tell you one thing, it's not the Communist Party. It's not the leftist groups. The avenger of the poor and the oppressed is God Himself. Look back in verse 16.
He who oppresses the poor to make much for himself, or who gives to the rich, and the idea there is to give them a bride to gain advantage, will only come to poverty. To take advantage of the poor is to steal. And I think one of the ways that that is being done increasingly in our society is by gambling and by the lottery. However you cut the cake, through the lottery there is a disproportionate amount of so-called revenue that will come from the poor.
I think one news commentator put it well this last week when he said that it is taking from the poor to give to the desperate. That's about all that it amounts to. A disproportionate amount of that which is raised comes from those who can least afford it. G. Campbell Morgan writes these scathing words that need to be heard today in our state. The whole habit of gambling is of the essence of theft.
A man who gambles, whether by play or betting, puts into his pocket money for which he has done no honest work. And by the very act he robs the man from whom he receives and violates the law of love. There is no more insidious evil sapping away the integrity and uprightness of the nations of the earth today than this lust for possession without toil which lies at the root of all gambling.
It behooves all lovers of God and men, resolutely and without apology, to thunder the words of the Eighth Commandment in the ears of all gamblers, whether their practices are gilded by the glory of a court or tarnished by the vulgarity of a slum. And may I add or propose by the state of Minnesota. Gambling is sin and it's wrong in the eyes of God. God has provided for mankind three ways in which to increase wealth. Industry, that is work, toil, labor. Inheritance, by which we are given money.
And thirdly by wise investment of our money. Those are three honorable ways for us to increase our wealth. Gambling is a desire to get something for nothing. Gambling is a vice. It is not honorable. It is reprehensible that the morality of our state leaders has gone to the point that it has that we think that we have to use this device of vice in order to help fund our state government in any form. It is taking advantage of the poor. It is dishonorable in the eyes of God.
Stealing also, number ten, is to take advantage of another's compassion or to take advantage of the welfare system. Illegitimate advantage of the welfare system, I should say. In 2 Thessalonians 3 verses 7 to 12, we have a statement in the New Testament of the work ethic, and I want you to know that from Genesis right on through the Bible, God exalts the work ethic. It is His plan for people to work, to earn for themselves.
Essentially what it boils down to in that text is that if a person will not work, he should not eat off of others either. Basically what was happening was that there were some people who for whatever reasons were leeches off of other believers. That is not an honorable way to live. I want to quickly say that I believe that there is a place for us to assist those who have genuine needs. We need to assist them. That is not the problem with our welfare system today.
The problem with our welfare system today is that it is overloaded by people who do not have legitimate needs. And consequently it is crushing society in general. And there is quite a reaction to it, and rightly so. Stealing is to take advantage of another's compassion when it is not really needed, or to take advantage of a welfare system, just genuinely. Stealing also can be found in another context. Thus far we have looked basically at a social context.
We have looked horizontally at our relationships with other people. But turn with me to the book of Malachi. If you are not sure where that is, go to Matthew and put it in reverse. You will come to it. In Malachi the third chapter, verses 8 and 9, God speaks through His prophet and says this to Israel, will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me, but you say how have we robbed thee? God's response is in tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. And test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. You see I did not know we taught tithing in our church. Well we don't. There are people who have convictions about tithing and that's fine.
But we do not teach tithing as a New Testament principle for giving. There is a higher principle. It is the principle of proportionate giving. The tithe is merely the basis, it's merely the starting point. The basis of giving in the New Testament is that of grace. We give back to God out of gratitude for the gracious blessings that He pours into our lives. And so there is not a direct interpretation of this passage to us, but there is an application that is here.
If I selfishly withhold my giving to the Lord, I am robbing God of what is due to Him. God says so Himself. This is stealing in another context, in a spiritual context, in a vertical relationship with God. And brother it applies. It applies. Failure to give God what is rightfully His in my giving to the Lord's work is to be a thief. And it's serious. There's another way in which one can steal.
We find this in the Old Testament as well, illustrated in 2 Samuel 15, 6, where it says Absalom stole away the hearts of the men of Israel, thus far we have talked about goods, property and money. But now we talk about loyalty. God says regarding Absalom, David's son, that he stole the hearts or the loyalty of the followers of his father. And he nearly pulled off a coup because he was a thief. A thief of loyalty of the followers of the leader. That too is a breaking of the 8th commandment.
And so perhaps you can see that the sin of stealing is much more common than we might initially think it is. In fact, even some of us who are here today may in effect be stealing and not be aware of the fact that we've been stealing. What does the Bible say to us New Testament Christians regarding this matter of stealing? Well, the first thing the Bible says in the New Testament is this, that we need to recognize that thieves, all thieves, need to be saved and can be by the grace of God.
Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and look at these hopeful verses with me. Beginning in verse 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Now he begins to break down what unrighteous means. He says, do not be deceived about this. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God.
I mean, it could not be more clear in the Bible that those who practice these sins have no place in heaven. The gates of heaven are barred to them. The kingdom of God will never be their experience. They will not inherit it. It includes thieves, those who have stolen. I care not if it be a piece of candy from the corner grocery store or a million dollars from a bank. Now there is difference in degree of what the hurt was to those who suffered the loss, but in the eyes of God the offense is sin.
It is stealing in either case. God says that thieves shall not inherit the kingdom of God. To thank God, it goes on to say in verse 11, and such were some of you. And he says, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. You see, thieves can be saved and need to be saved. They can be washed from their sin. They can be sanctified and set apart from that kind of life, made clean.
They can be justified, that is declared right in the eyes of God. Why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross and there suffered in the place of thieves. Indeed, he died with two of them, one of whom was forgiven. The Lord Jesus Christ in his sacrifice at Calvary paid the price for our sin, including all the stealing that we've done. When we come to him and receive him as Savior, we are justified in the eyes of God.
It doesn't mean that our stealing was right, it means it was terribly wrong, it was sin, but God forgives it for Jesus' sake because he paid the price for that sin. We need to recognize that thieves need to be saved and can be saved by the grace of God. But there's more to be said to thieves in the New Testament than that. Turn with me to Ephesians.
The fourth chapter, verse 28, Paul seems to be addressing some believers who may have backslidden, believers who may have reverted to some of their old ways. He says to believers in verse 28 of the fourth chapter, let him who steals, steal no longer, but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need. We need to understand that dishonesty, thievery, and stealing of any sort is not allowed for a child of God.
We are to be an upright and honest people. We are to work with our own hands, earn an honest living, and not just for ourselves but so that we may have to give to those who have need. God says, let him who steals, steal no more. What does one do when the conscience is guilty about this matter of stealing? When the Holy Spirit has convicted of this sin and there is pressure within, just as some of you may be experiencing right at this moment. What is one to do in a case like that?
It seems to me that there are two things that must be done. First of all, we have to honestly admit to God what we have been doing. It may be that we have not even recognized our sin before this, but now we do. We have to recognize it and admit it to God. That is confession. 1 John 1-9 assures us that if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and He is just. He has the right to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is the first step.
That is where we have to begin. So if you are this morning distressed because of some episode in your life, that is where it starts. It may have happened years ago and you have tried to bury that thing over and over again, but just like a balloon that is under water, it keeps popping back to the surface. You push it down again, you try to suppress it and pop it and it comes up again. How do you get rid of something like that? Well, it begins here.
By an honest confession to God, what we have done. That is the starting point. Have you done that? It may be in your tax returns. It may be something that happened in your office last year or years ago that no one knows about but you. It starts with a confession to God. But there is a second step. That is the step of restitution. What this means is that we must be willing to go back to those people that we can and make right what we can. You say, won't God forgive me unless I do that?
The point is that your conscience will not be clear unless you are willing to do that. Maybe that is the reason that it keeps coming to the surface. You have confessed it to God but you haven't made it right with people. You see, stealing is the kind of a sin that involves that dimension. We confess it to God to be forgiven of it but for our consciences to be cleared, we have to go to the people that we have offended. It may be writing the IRS a dear IRS letter.
You say, wait a minute, there are going to be fines and there is going to be interest. That is right. It may be costly. How serious are you about cleansing your conscience of the guilt? It may be that you are going to have to write a manager of an office you worked in at one time and say to him or to her, here is what I did and I am sorry and here is something to try to make that up. Or if you can't make it up, at least apologize and ask forgiveness.
It may be that you need to go to work and say to your boss, I am a Christian but I have been stealing from this company and this is what I have done. You say, I am putting my job on the line. That is right. But I have got a hunch that your company would rather have an honest employee than to get rid of you and hire somebody they don't know. So your job may be on the line. At least your conscience is going to be clear.
Restitution involves going back and making right as much as we possibly can those that we have offended. Remember that short little guy down there at Jericho? What was his name? Oh yeah, Zach Keyes, the wee little fellow. Remember what happened after he was converted? He came out and announced to the crowd and he said, if I have wronged any of you, if I have stolen anything, I will return it fourfold. What happened to Zach Keyes?
He got saved and he knew in order to get his conscience clear, he needed to make it right with people and he offered to repay fourfold what he had taken. That is restitution. You say, that is going to hurt my reputation. It may help your reputation, but it may hurt it. Let God take care of your reputation, my friend. You look after your character. Your reputation will catch up with you. I don't know what the cost may be for you. You may even risk a jail term.
But it will be worth it, because you will be able to deal with that thing that has plagued you and burdened you all this time. I challenge you to do it in obedience to God. Undoubtedly, the most serious kind of stealing is that which is done directly against God himself. There is no way that we can make up to God what we may have owed him. We can begin to take steps of obedience. God says, you shall not steal. And let him who steals, steal no more. Let's pray.
With our heads bowed, our eyes closed, as the Spirit of God does that work which only he can do in convicting us, exposing us, loving us. My friend, will you let him have his way in your life this morning? Will you say to the Lord in words of honest confession what you've done? Will you commit to the Lord that you will take whatever steps are necessary to clear your conscience, to make restitution?
Are you willing to write letters, to go see some person, make a telephone call, to take whatever steps you can reasonably take to make it right? Will you tell the Lord right now that you will do that? Father I thank you this morning for the piercing of your word. Sometimes it makes us angry at first, at the preacher, or at you, or at ourselves. But thank you nonetheless that you do pierce our hearts so that we can be healthy, children of yours.
This morning there are some brothers and sisters here who are struggling with weighty matters. Some of them have been burdened with guilt for years. I pray that right now today or tomorrow they will take whatever steps are necessary in order to be free from that load. Thank you for providing that possibility for us to be free and cleansed and sanctified. Thank you that we can be whiter than snow. Yes, whiter than snow. Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Lord thank you for making that possible through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Today we come to you in humility and repentance to avail ourselves of that cleansing. In Jesus name, Amen.