The 8th Commandment: Do Not Steal

Thank you. As I mentioned, we're going to continue our discussion today on the Ten Commandments. We've reached the Eighth Commandments. Author Dennis Prager has pointed out that the Eighth Commandments do not steal, encompasses many other of the commandments. For example, if you murder, you steal someone's life. If you commit adultery, you steal someone's spouse. If you lie, you steal justice from somebody. And you can kind of continue on through that.

In fact, I think that stealing really epitomizes and summarizes what Herbert Armstrong used to talk about as the get-way. Because typically, if you steal, you've come to a point where you really can't get something by a legitimate means, so therefore you're going to get it by an illegitimate means. And that's really the opposite of what he described as the way of give. And so the Eighth Commandment has significant repercussions in our society because it hasn't been kept.

Respect for other people's property, whether tangible or intangible—talk about intellectual property today—and respect for our obligations and duties is a fundamental way that we show love one for another by respecting their things. Whether you're five years old and your little sister takes something, or whether you're an adult and somebody takes away something that you have created without asking your permission. In fact, one of the quickest ways to find out where somebody stands on this issue is to just say something like, actually, I think it's probably a problem if you copy that CD for 15 of your friends.

Or what do you mean, I can't download that book off the Internet. What do you mean? Most of us, frankly, would not fathom walking into the local 7-Eleven and stealing something. That's stealing. We kind of intuitively get that that's wrong. There's a cashier, and we have to pay for something, and there's a camera, and so forth.

So none of us would fathom robbing a 7-Eleven, but then again we might not have a problem downloading a book that really we probably should have bought instead.

So stealing can take many, many forms. Today I want to talk about the Eighth Commandment, Do Not Steal. We're going to discuss briefly the Jewish historical understanding of what the Scripture has meant. This sermon is a little bit different than some of the other sermons on the Ten Commandments because this tends to lend itself to a lot of very specific examples which can get us very uncomfortable.

And I think as we go through this, again, this is not the pastor confession hour, but you know, I've made mistakes here. I'll share some of those. We're all in the same boat. So if you feel a little uncomfortable, it's okay. This is the time to kind of re-examine some of those things that we might take for granted as we go through this process. There's four points that we're going to cover. Theft of property, borrowing and not repaying, being faithful in our business dealings, which is a great tie-in to the sermonette. This happened last week in Petaluma. And finally, how we think about tithes and offerings. So let's jump in here to Exodus 20, verse 15, and let's look at this commandment.

It's actually, if you want to turn there, it's actually one of the shortest scriptures in the Bible. It's not the shortest, but it's one of the shortest. It's really only two Hebrew words. One Hebrew word is the word for not, and the other word is the Hebrew word for steal. It's just that simple, not steal. Exodus 20, verse 15 says, you shall not steal. Now, the word here for steal is the Hebrew word ganab. And sometimes people have interpreted this word to be very specific, and sometimes they've interpreted it to be very narrow.

Now, according to Becoming Christianity, which is a blog that you can look up, they've pointed out that this commandment has been interpreted to be very open-ended. What do I mean by open-ended? Well, if you're not supposed to murder, well, you know that means that you don't murder a person. If you're not supposed to commit adultery, well, that means that you don't commit adultery with a married person. And if you're supposed to honor your parents, well, children honor parents. That's who they honor. But steal doesn't have any object in that sense. And so you can steal a lot of different things.

For example, you could steal someone's reputation. How would you steal someone's reputation? Well, you could slander them, right? I think we've seen this, right? We've seen—and this has been one of the very prominent issues of our day—where some people's reputations have been sullied by accusations made against them.

And now people kind of have that accusation in their mind. So their reputation could have been stolen from them. Alcoholic parents, for example, can steal their children's childhood. Now, how do they do that? Well, you know, it's all about their alcoholism, and they're not there for their kids. And so their kids grow up without a childhood. Some parents can smother their children, even as adults, right?

And they can kind of steal, really, a whole set of relationships that their children could have or be having, but they're monopolizing their time. You can steal somebody's dignity through abuse. You know, again, somebody can be abusive. A husband can be abusive to his spouse. A parent can be abusive to their children. And that can steal their dignity. Rape is a way of stealing somebody's dignity. So this commandment of do not steal could be interpreted to be very, very open-ended. That really, it's a very broad command that we should not steal. Take a look just one page over at Exodus 21, verse 16. Another interpretation of this commandment is very, very narrow, and the very narrow interpretation of this commandment is in Exodus 21, 16. It says in my Bible, he who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death. Now this word kidnap is the same Hebrew word ganab. That's in Exodus 20, verse 15. And in fact, if you read this in the French, it just says, anyone who steals a man. They actually just in the French language, they just use the word steal. And so some have interpreted this commandment to be very narrow in that the eighth commandment is really just a prohibition against kidnapping.

It's just a prohibition against kidnapping. And if you kidnap somebody, you are subject to the death penalty. Just like if you murder somebody, you're subject to the death penalty. If you commit adultery, you're subject to the death penalty. Now the Church of God does not believe in this narrow interpretation of the commandment. And the reason we don't believe it is because we see in the New Testament this command amplified by Jesus Christ and by the New Testament Church. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 11. It is an interesting, linguistic connection that is the same word used there in Exodus 21. But we think that this command to not steal is much broader. 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 to 11. We read really a stunning list of sins which the Apostle Paul described will cause somebody to not be in the kingdom of God. Verse 9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And now he's going to give us a list. Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. Now that list is interesting for a lot of reasons, which we can go into, but let's just focus on the word thieves as it says here. Thieves. Now this word, thief, comes from the Greek word kleptes. Now you might recognize that, kleptes, because that's the Greek base that we derive kleptomania from, or kleptomaniac. That's where that comes from. Somebody who has an uncontrollable need to steal. It's actually a condition. And this word kleptes is defined by help word study as a thief who steals in secret and not with violence. So if somebody walks into a 7-11 with a gun and holds up a 7-11, that's a theft of violence. That is not what this Greek word would describe. This Greek word would describe somebody who sneaks in to a store, puts something in their pocket, and walks out. Or somebody who breaks into a house that they've kind of stalked for a while and they break in when nobody's there. They're a thief. And that's what's being described here, this idea of thieving, which is one aspect of what it means to steal. And so, we see that Paul says that those people who steal, even without violence, are not going to be in the kingdom of God. So we understand that to not steal is something that's pretty serious. And it's even elevated to the same level of the other commandments, which we see here idolatry and adultery. Adultery being the commandment that just comes right before. And it's interesting because if we think about sodomy, ooh, right? But that's something that's right before being a thief. So this is a very serious thing that God takes when we don't respect the boundaries of other people's property, which is what is really being described. So we understand in the Church of God the Eighth Commandment is a very comprehensive commandment, which really can be considered to be open-ended. So let's go through a few scriptural examples here. Let's go to Exodus 22. And by the way, we could spend some time on the fact that Jesus Christ Himself, when asked what we needed to do to inherit life, He actually cites this commandment in Matthew 19. We won't take that into account. But we won't take the time to go there. But Jesus Christ makes a reference to that as well. So stealing is a fundamental command of someone who desires to follow God's law. Exodus 22, verse 1. Exodus 22 is a fascinating scripture or set of scriptures and chapter on how God considers the penalty of stealing and what should be involved. Exodus 22, verse 1.

So here's a fundamental principle. This person has stolen from God's law.

It means they violated somebody else's property. They've taken it without permission. And, you know, the penalty is not that the hand is cut off. The penalty is not the person who's taken out a shot at dawn. That's not what the penalty is for stealing. The penalty for stealing is restitution. And the restitution has to be significantly large such that the person will be ill-advised to think about stealing again. So in this case, the restitution is a fine. And the fine is 400% or 500%, depending on what was stolen. So the fine is pretty hefty. And if somebody couldn't pay the fine, because, you know, if they stole, maybe they stole because they didn't have the money to buy, well, they would have to sell themselves into indentured servitude to pay off the fine of four or 500%. You can imagine they stole a couple cattle. You know, you're talking about a pretty significant amount of money that they'd have to pay back. So if we think about, for example, somebody stealing because they're hungry, which a lot of times we think, well, you know, that's maybe that's okay. Well, you know, the Scripture also describes about somebody who might steal because they're hungry. If you go to Proverbs 6, verse 30, we can see the discussion there. And this comes up a lot, frankly, as I'm traveling in Africa, because a lot of times people are not necessarily out, per se, to get something, but, you know, they've got troubles, right?

Their father or mother might be in the hospital. You know, their cousin might be in a difficult situation where maybe they don't have a place to live. And so somebody steals in those kinds of circumstances. Proverbs 6, verse 30, it says, people do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Now, there's different actual translations from the Hebrew. The French actually does not put it in this term. They actually make it very clear that a thief actually should not be praised, but the English puts it this way.

You can talk about the different interpretations. But verse 31 follows it up very clearly. So even though, under the English translation, you should not despise a thief if he's stealing to satisfy himself when he's starving, verse 31 says, yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold. Okay, so there's a 700% fine for stealing, if you're stealing because you're hungry. That's interesting, isn't it? So it's like, okay, fine. I realize you were hungry, so I respect the fact that you're going through a difficult time, but you still have to pay restitution. You're not off the hook just because you're stealing because you're in a bad situation or somebody in your family is in a bad situation.

You still have to restore 700%. Now, again, that person might forgive that debt. That person might say that debt could be paid over a period of time. There could be mercy involved. But it's interesting that even in situations of dire need, restitution had to be paid. Let's go back to Exodus 22. Let's continue a pretty detailed discussion about stealing. So we understand there's a 400%, 500%, or in some cases a 700% fine for stealing. In verse 2, it talks about if a thief is found breaking in, again, this thief is this concept of somebody breaking in, not intending to do violence just to steal, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.

If the son has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. So now there's a distinction. So if the thief breaks in at night and you're kind of, as the owner, you're kind of half awake and you're scared and you don't know what, you know, maybe the person's coming to kill you, you don't know, and you know, you go down and you hit the person over the head to stop him, and that person dies, well, you're not held accountable because you were surprised in the middle of the night.

But if the thief is actually breaking in during the daytime when you have kind of your wits about you and you're not sort of, you know, a little slower, you are held responsible because now what you're doing is you're plotting the death of somebody. But it says here that in verse 3, if the son has risen on him, he shall make full restitution if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

So, you know, if you hit the guy in the middle of the night and he lives, now he's got to pay double. He's got to pay double. If the thief is certainly found alive, verse 4, in his hand, whether it is an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall restore double. And most scholars would argue that this is referring to double the regular fine, right?

So if the fine is 400%, he's got to pay 800%. If it's 500% for an ox, he's got to pay a thousand percent fine because now he was actually putting somebody's life in risk. They could have had an altercation, the owner could have been killed, who knows? So now, again, this, the idea here is to not sort of go through all of these details, but to give you an idea that God was very specific, right? 400, 500, 700, 800, 1000% is he lived during the night and so forth.

And we can continue. Verse 5 talks about what happens if a field is grazed. You know, somebody lets their animal out and they graze the field and they steal that. Verse 6 talks about how a fire breaks out and how to deal with a fire and what would go on there. Verse 10 is a case where there's a destruction that you can't determine and how you go to court over that and how you handle those situations. The point is it's a very detailed sort of legislative, you know, understanding of how we deal with people who steal.

If you go to verse 14, I want to pause here again. There's a lot I could cover, but verse 14 is interesting because this is something that comes up a lot in our day and age. Verse 14, if a man borrows anything from his neighbor and it becomes injured or dies, the owner of it not being with it, he shall surely make it good. Verse 15, but if its owner was with it, he shall not make it good. It was hired. It came for its hire. So if you go, as some of you might, over to your neighbor, and you say, hey, I need to mow my lawn and my lawnmower is broken, could I borrow your lawnmower?

And he's like, sure, you know, just bring it back when you're done. And you go over and you start mowing your lawn and the lawnmower dies in the middle of, you know, you're mowing your lawn, you're like, this lawnmower dies. Guess who's responsible to repair the lawnmower?

You are, because it was in your possession. It was working fine when you took possession of it, and now it's not working anymore. And you can't go back to your neighbor and say, hey, your lawnmower conked out here. They were going to be like, my lawnmower is working fine.

Did you damage it? And then you have rur, you know, then you have all this dispute. Now imagine that you borrow somebody's car. Somebody's car, you're driving somebody's car, oh, transmission went out. Oh, $3,000 repair, $5,000 repair, who's responsible?

The person who borrowed the car. Ooh, better not be borrowing cars. You don't want to be, it's like that car had 250,000 miles on it. You know, it's not my fault the transmission went out just when I had it. Well, you know, there can be fairness, right? And clearly, you know, that might be the case. But by rights, according to God's law, if you're driving the car when the transmission goes out and the owner is not with you, you know, it's your responsibility. So there's a plot of some interesting things in here about how you define stealing. Now, I think this might be a good point here to talk about intellectual property.

So you're probably not a surprise that compact discs are not in the Bible, right? I think we know that. Right, you know, software was not kind of conceived at that time. But I think, and the reason I wanted to go through just a little bit of detail in Exodus 22 is to give us an idea that God was very specific and very thorough about the list of potential sort of disputes that might arise between two people. So, you know, if intellectual property had existed, then very likely it would have been discussed. Now, I want to quote here something from Tim Headley. He's an attorney who focuses on intellectual property, and this appeared in the Houston Baptist College Review, Center for Christianity and Business, and it's titled, Is the Bible Relevant to Intellectual Property? And I'm quoting from him now. He says, The founders of our country decided that it would be wise to create laws that would motivate people to invent and create. Thus, in 1787, they wrote, in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. And then the article goes on to provide a comprehensive look at the laws of the United States in respect to intellectual property. And I think this is really amazing because I actually, as I've shared with you, I actually also give messages in French each week, and so I had to do a little bit of research on French intellectual property laws. At the United States Constitution, the fact this is actually in our Constitution. This is not an amendment. This is not something that somebody sort of had in common law. They put this in our Constitution. This was actually groundbreaking. It actually came, believe it or not, from the French. The French in the 1400s, one of the queens, actually gave intellectual property rights to authors. And then in the 1760s, there was actually another thing for that. So the Americans got this from the French, but they took this to a whole another level. And so in the United States, authors, musicians, creators of intellectual property have protections on their intellectual property. And the biblical principle that we follow, as described in this article, is in Romans 13. So let's go over to Romans 13, because you can't find intellectual property rights in Exodus 22, but we can find the principle in Romans 13.

And we'll start in verse 1. Romans 13 in verse 1, it says, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. Okay, we're supposed to be subject to governing authorities, which at this time, the governing authorities were the emperors of Rome, were the various governors and the provinces and so forth. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. And we need to remember that if we have any problems with our governor or our president or our congressman or whatever.

Romans 13 says these people have their authority from God. Now if we go down to verse 6, it says, for because of this you also pay taxes. For they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due taxes, to whom taxes are due, customs, to whom customs are due, fear, to whom fear, honor, to whom honor. And so we have to abide, we should abide by the United States Constitution, which says that inventors should be given their due. And there's laws that protect inventors, and we have to honor those laws just as we honor the authorities, and we pay our taxes. Which is another way you can steal. Right? I've heard people say if it's not on out of 1099, right? Ooh, that got uncomfortable, didn't it? Right? If we are thinking about, we think, I'm not going to give my money to this corrupt government. I'm not going to give my money so it can be squandered on all sorts of things that I disagree with.

No, we don't get to make that choice. We need to pay our taxes because the Bible says we're supposed to pay our taxes because otherwise we'd be stealing. We can't download a book that we really should buy because we're stealing from the author. Right? We can't, you know, attribute something that is not our idea. So if I get up here and I don't give proper attribution, and I'm really getting scared about that because I'm, you know, thinking, oh, I hope I gave proper attribution. That's called plagiarism. Right? That's somebody else's idea. I'm stealing their idea and I'm making it my own.

Let me give you a personal example. On my first trip to China back in 2005, I was visiting with some of my colleagues at Intel in Shanghai and they told me that I could get a great deal on golf clubs. Now, I don't really play golf, but I wanted to play golf and I thought, great, I could buy some cheap golf clubs. Well, they come along the next day and they're Callaway golf clubs.

And they say, well, they're not really Callaway. It's just, you know, it's pirated. You know, they're a local manufacturer and, you know, they put that on there. And anyway, at the time I thought, well, you know, I want to buy these golf clubs. And I didn't know much about it. Well, I found out that was actually a major mark and it was way more expensive. And I lugged these things all over Asia and people thought I played golf. And anyway, I got home and my wife's like, what are you doing with these golf clubs? And then I started feeling really bad. I'm like, you know, I think I just bought pirated stuff. And I eventually sold those. And, you know, like, I just, you know, don't, you know, I don't want to have anything to do with the fact, you know, disclose these are, you know, bought in China. So I said, I bought these in China. Bought these in China. They may not be real.

And I used to, when I would travel, I used to go get DVDs and all sorts of things. And I mean, they were the strangest pirated DVDs. And then I realized that's probably not right. I probably shouldn't be having these DVDs and so forth. And so, you know, when we take somebody's mark, we are stealing that mark. There's investments in that brand. And, you know, if you, if you, you know, start taking these DVDs, you're taking away something from the authors. So that is stealing, and we should not steal. And I've done that, and I've realized my mistake in that. And I try to be careful about that, not to say that I don't make those mistakes. A lot of times we don't even think about it. Or we think, you know what, you know, Lucas Films, do they not have enough money? You know? I mean, they're billionaires, right? Why can't I just take a DVD? But technically, you're taking a DVD. You really are, if you, if you get a pirated copy of that.

Before we leave this point, let's look over at one other point in Deuteronomy 22.

Deuteronomy 22, verse 1 and 3. And this is something that also gets pretty personal. Again, what I'm trying to get across is, a lot of times we think, you know, if there was a picture next to the eighth commandment, it would be a picture of us holding up a 7-11. And we're like, no, I would never do that. But we might do other things. We might be tempted to do other things, right? So Deuteronomy 22, verse 1. You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You shall certainly bring them back to your brother. And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it, and then you shall restore it to him. You shall do the same with his donkey. You shall do the same with his garment. With any lost thing of your brothers, which he has lost, and you have found, you shall do likewise. You must not hide yourself.

So finders, keepers, losers, weepers is not a biblical principle.

Okay? And that is really hard. My daughter at the Cincinnati Airport, she got out of the car, and there was this huge wad of cash in this billfold lying on the sidewalk. Big wad of cash.

She went and turned it in. A little tempting, maybe, but she knew she needed to turn it in. The police were very thankful. They were thankful for two reasons. One, they said, you did the right thing. And two, they said, if it is not claimed within a certain period of time, it is yours. So that's the application that we have today. The application today is that there is a reasonable period of time for the owner to reclaim the property. And that varies state by state. It can be a year, it can be six months. There's a reasonable period of time that the owner has to go reclaim the property. So when Sophie called us, she's like, yeah, if nobody claims it, it's going to be mine. And then somebody did claim it. Somebody did properly claim it. And that person was very thankful, right? That poor person lost their wad of cash. And if you were that poor person, you would obviously be thankful that it was turned in. I had that happen with my wedding ring. I was traveling in Singapore, and I was on my way to Manila, and I left my ring, fell out as I was in the lounge. I was taking a shower there and getting changed for my next trip. And I didn't realize it until I was on the plane, and they were literally starting on the way to Manila. And I realized it had my ring, and I dashed up and I asked the stewardess, it was Singapore Airlines, it was Singapore Airlines' lounge. And I thought, you know, it's a gold ring, there's no way. But the maid, or the maid's service at cleaning, had actually turned my ring in. And so when I got to Manila, they called the lounge, and the lounge had said, yep, we have his ring here, and he can get it on the way back. I was very, very thankful for that. And because Singapore is primarily Chinese, they all thought that I had the good fortune that I would have a very long married life, because my ring had been found, and that was a good omen for my married life. So that's how we also think about stealing. We can't just say, oh, I found this, it's mine. No, we have to actually hold it in safekeeping until somebody comes and claims it.

Let's go on to the second point here, which is borrowing money and not repaying. Let's go to Psalm 37, verse 21. Psalm 37, borrowing money and not repaying. Now, that seems kind of obvious, right? Who would borrow money and not repay that ceiling? Well, it is, yes. And in fact, it says as such in Psalm 37, verse 21, the wicked borrows and does not repay, and the righteous shows mercy and gives. So it used to be with our old bankruptcy laws that people would use credit cards until they basically kind of, you know, ran out of money and credit, and then they declare bankruptcy. Well, the credit card companies got pretty smart on this and realized that that was happening, and they quit doing that. There's lots of debates about whether that was an overly business-friendly law or not. That doesn't happen quite as much. But nonetheless, if we use a credit card and we don't have a plan to repay that credit card and it gets out of hand, what can happen? Well, what can happen is, let's say we lose our job and we've got 20 or 30 thousand dollars of debt and we lose our job, we can't make our payment. Or we have some sort of medical emergency, right? Now, you know, you can't sort of walk around thinking about all the bad things that can happen, but we need to be careful when we're using our credit cards, because indeed, that's money that we are borrowing. More likely what ends up happening is we loan somebody money.

And I've seen this literally affect God's people, where people have literally quit coming to church over this, because somebody borrowed money and then they said they were going to repay, you know, and this happens all the time. You lend money and you think you're lending it for three months, and they heard three years. So you're like, no, no, you I didn't lend you this for three years, I went in for three months. I thought I heard three years, I used them, I can't pay you back, right? And then somebody thinks, well, you know, you're going to pay me 10% back in a month, or they think 10% back in a year. And what happens is, especially, we don't write these things down. We're like, oh, you need some money? Yeah, I hear some money, right? Well, how much did you give them?

I gave you a thousand. No, you gave me 500. No, I gave you a thousand. And it goes back and forth. And then if we lend money for like a business dealing, right? So this is a legitimate business thing, you can do this. Oh, you want some money to start a business? Okay, I'll give you some money to start a business. Well, what's the interest rate? Oh, it's going to be 5%. Okay, is that a reasonable interest rate? Yeah. Did you write it down? Oh, I forgot to write it down. How frequently should the interest be paid? Should it be paid as sort of an addition to the debt over time, or should it be paid monthly or quarterly? We don't write these things down, and then they create all sorts of tensions between brothers and sisters in the Church and people and families. I'll give you an example here of what happened to me. I had a friend who was moving to Canada, and he was selling a lot of his things and putting things in boxes and shipping things and so forth, and he was kind of running out of time, and so he hadn't sold his car yet. And he said to me, he says, hey, I'm going to Canada for three weeks to kind of finish this. Could you look after my car, and could you kind of show it to some of your friends, and maybe it had a for-sale sign in it, right? And could you take it to, you know, take it to like public areas where, you know, like you go shopping or something? So, you know, people can see it. I don't want it just sitting in my driveway for the next three weeks. I've got it on this sell site and so forth. I want to have it have it have some exposure. Well, this was this gorgeous red Mercedes-Benz, okay? It was one of these sport Mercedes-Benz, and just a sweet car, really. And at the time, I mean, I could no way I could afford a car like that. And so I'm like, sure, I'll drive your car for you. No problem. And so, so I drove it to work, and I told my friends, a couple people came out, looked at the car, yeah, and these were people who had money to buy the car. These were lawyers and so forth. I took it to Trader Joe's, you know, I took it to various places. Well, he came back three weeks later, and you can probably guess what happened. He's like, you drove a lot. I don't think I drove a lot. Yeah, I mean, you put, I can't remember how many miles I put on the car. He was upset. He was upset because he wanted to sell this car. It was a low mileage car, and I added a lot of miles to the car. You know, if I had been smart, right, in hindsight, what I should have said is, okay, great, I have no problem doing this, but how many total miles are you okay with me driving this car? Right? I should have asked him that, because then I would have kept it under that. So I thought, you know, and I enjoyed driving the car. It was a great car to drive, right? So, so then it got kind of awkward, like, okay, well, I can pay you some miles, and he's like, nah, nah, you know, and anyway, it really affected our relationship. I didn't intend to steal. I really didn't, but he felt that I had stolen some value from his car by driving too much. And again, that's a situation where maybe we borrow, and we don't intend to steal from somebody by borrowing, but our expectations of what is a fair interest rate, or what's a reasonable time to pay back, may not be the same as the person who's borrowing.

So I tell people over and over again, if you want to follow this scripture, first principle is write it down so you know what you're doing, and that will really solve a lot of issues. The second principle around borrowing and not repaying is in Luke 6, verse 30. Over to Luke 6 and verse 30. Because sometimes, instead of borrowing or lending, it may be better just to give the money. So if you're, if somebody approaches you and they want to start a business, and this has happened many times, and they're looking for $10,000 or $5,000 or $20,000 or something substantial, that's fine. You know, you can enter into a business dealing, have a contract, have stated interest, you know, what the period is going to be, you know, get some advice. You might be investing in a business that will never pay back, right? But if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I'm really having some difficulty right now, you know, I'm kind of, I really need a little bit of help. I'm wondering if I can borrow $500 from you right now. You might think about Luke 6 and verse 30. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. In verse 31, and just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise, the golden rule. But if you love those who love you, what credit is it for you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is to you for even sinners do the same? Verse 34 then brings out this principle. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you for even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back? So if somebody comes to you and says, hey, you know, really, I could use kind of a loan of $500 right now, kind of some difficult times, and you loan the person money and you say, yeah, you know, no interest because you really shouldn't be charging interest. That's a whole other thing. If it's between brothers, it's not a business deal and so forth. You know, if you lend the money, you really didn't do them any favors. All you're doing is saying, yeah, I'll lend you this money, you're going to pay it back. Right? That's pretty much what the Scripture is saying.

Might be better just to give them the $500. Say, look, here's the $500. I know it's hard times. When it gets to be, when you're back on your feet and somebody comes to you and needs a little bit of help, just pay it forward. Right? Better just to give. Verse 35, but love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the highest, for he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your father in heaven is merciful. So that might be a better principle instead of lending the money. Just give the money. Now somebody says, hey, could I have $5,000? You might say, well, that's a lot of money. What do you need $5,000 for? By the way, that's good to ask. It's good to ask. What do you need the money for? I need the money to pay off my uncle. Oh, so this is a pyramid scheme. You're involving me in your personal pyramid scheme to pay off your uncle. Well, how did you owe your uncle? Well, because of, and then the pyramid scheme starts, right? So ask, why do you need the money?

I need the money because, and then evaluate the reason. And if you evaluate the reason to not be a good reason, it's okay to say no. It's okay to say no. You know what? I don't think that makes sense here. I'm sorry. I don't think I can loan you the money. I can give you a little bit of money.

You know, if they come in asking for a thousand or loan for a thousand, you say, oh, I think I've got a hundred dollars I could give you for it to help. You know, you could say, you know, help. That is okay. We shouldn't feel like just because they're a brother in the church, we owe it to them, right? Oh, well, they're a brother in the church. We have to lend them the money. We have to give them the money. We can make judgments, or we might say, well, let me think about it and then go get some advice. That's a really good thing. Let me think about it. Let me get some advice on that before I lend you the money. So borrowing and not repaying. Something very, very simple is asking questions, getting advice, writing things down can save a lot of headaches.

The third principle here is being fair in our business dealings. Let's turn over to Leviticus 19 verse 35. Being fair in our business dealings. And we heard a whole sermon on this, sermonette on this, so I might go a little bit more quickly over this one.

Very good discussion of that. Leviticus 19 verse 35.

It says here, you shall do no injustice in judgment in measurement of length, weight, or volume.

You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hen. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So if we go to the gas station and we pump gas, we will see that there's a little seal on the pump that says this has been determined to be accurate, so that if you pay, if it says it's, you know, three dollars and ten cents a gallon, you actually are getting a gallon of gas for three dollars, ten cents, and nine tenths, which is technically, I think, what the price is typically listed as. And we understand the scripture in the Church of God to be very, very broad in its application. So, for example, in Luke 10 verse 7, it says, a laborer is worthy of his hire. A laborer is worthy of his hire. And so we understand that we need to be just in paying somebody who would work for us. And if you want to be just in paying somebody who works for you, and the going rate is, you know, fifteen dollars an hour, pay them fifteen fifty. Pay them sixteen.

Go, just be on the right side of that, right? Don't pay them fourteen fifty, right? Or say, well, they're in the Church, so, you know, I'll pay them thirteen.

Right? And what happens is, especially in the Church, is we have these unrealistic expectations one to another, right? Oh, he's a Church member who's rich, so therefore he'll pay me more, or he should pay me more. And then we don't get paid more, and then we're resentful, right? Or, you know, we're the person who's going to pay, and it's like, oh, well, you know, this person, this Church member, they don't really have a job anyway, so, you know, I'm doing them a favor, so I don't have to pay them the market wage. We tend to have these sort of unrealistic expectations one to another. So if we're the one being hired, we should not expect any special favors.

We shouldn't expect any special favors. If we're the ones being hired, we should be willing to take a fair wage, and we should work for that wage. And if we have something that comes up, that means we can't work, we shouldn't expect, because the person we're working for is a Church member, that they'll just understand, oh, they understand I have to do this. I have to take care of my mom.

Well, did you ask permission to take time off work to take care of your mom? Well, no, they should understand it's my mom. Well, no, you need to call them and give them a chance to advise on that. Otherwise, it's stealing. And unfortunately, sometimes in the Church, these expectations kind of get a little bit confused. Let's go over to Titus 2 in verse 9. Titus 2 in verse 9.

This is a principle of working for somebody. And there's lots of labor and hour wage rules now that kind of protect things, protect us from this stuff, and we have to follow those. Titus 2 verse 9. Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering.

Pilfering. That's just another word for stealing. Not stealing, but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things. So as an employee, we have to give an honest day's work for an honest day's wage. So we shouldn't be attending to personal business, and if we are, we need to be making up those hours. Sometimes that happens, right? We need to make up those hours. And there's a lot of other examples that I could cite here in James. You can write down James 1 verse 5, verse 1 to 4. That talks about how people in the church at that time who were employers were not paying their wages on time. They were withholding wages, right? So if you agree to hire somebody, and they're supposed to get paid every Friday, you don't have the right to pay them on Monday, following Monday. You have to pay them on Friday. They expect to be paid on Friday, and it's not right for you to withhold that wage because there's some sort of issue. You have to make that wage. So let's go into our next point here, which is stealing from God. Let's go over to Malachi 3, verse 8. Malachi 3 and verse 8. So we can steal from men in many ways, as I've described, and we can also steal from God. Malachi 3 verse 8, will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say, in what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. So we have an obligation to pay our tithes. And we know that Jesus Christ upheld this in Matthew 23, 23. We won't have to turn that, but you can write it down. Matthew 23 verse 23 makes it very clear that Jesus Christ said that there were weightier matters of the law, and tithing on the mint and the anise in the common were not weightier matters of the law of justice, mercy, and faith. But they still needed to be done.

And an offering, we're told, we are to give an offering three times in a year according to the Holy Days. We give one in the spring, we give one in the summer, and we give one in the fall. And the Church of God interprets that as along the Holy Days, and so we spread those along the Holy Days. And so there is an obligation. Now, it doesn't matter in terms of the offering, how big that offering is. We know the widow gave in and gave a might. She gave practically nothing, but God honored that offering because she was giving what she had to give. So even if we come before God with a penny, it's still an offering. We took the time to think about that. And so people were not coming before God three times in a year. They were not paying of their tithes to God, and they were stealing from God. And the way, you know, this is described in Scripture, is that God created all the earth. He owns all the earth, and He gives us an opportunity to benefit from that, and all He asks is 10 percent. All He asks is 10 percent back, which goes, as we understand, to at that time to the Levitical priesthood. And now, today, through Hebrews, we understand to the ministers of Jesus Christ as they administer the duties of Jesus Christ and to the people of God. In conclusion, let's go over to 1 Corinthians 6 verse 11 to just kind of close this out. 1 Corinthians 6, we read verses 9 to 10 in the previous sort of part of the sermon about thieves not inheriting the kingdom of God. And by the way, extortioners can be somebody who kidnaps somebody for a ransom, which is another way of stealing. Extortion can be holding some information over somebody and having them pay you. That's another form of stealing, obviously, as it comes through. Covetousness is another way of stealing because typically if you covet something, you want it badly. And if you want it badly enough, it can lead to stealing.

1 Corinthians 6 verse 11, after He's described these things, He says, and such were some of you. And so, you know, I told you about, you know, driving this red Mercedes, maybe more than I should have. I should have gotten clarity on that. I told you about my silly golf clubs and my DVDs, right? I've made mistakes in this area, and I think we've all made mistakes in this area. And I hope that you can think beyond holding up a 7-11 when you think about the eighth commandment. There's things that we do that break these commandments, and we can, without realizing it, have stolen either intellectual property, somebody else's idea, whatever it might be.

And so I hope that as we think about ourselves in the eighth commandment, we would recognize and see that we could actually be one of this some that's in this scripture. But you were washed, it says, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And so I'd ask us to reconsider all the different ways that we might be stealing even today and think and rethink how we can truly honor the eighth commandment.