You Shall Not Steal

Well, thank you, Mr. Rebar, and thank you, Mr. Graham, for having a song about the original tweet. First original tweet was that dove coming back with a message for Noah. Think about that. Thousands of years ahead of his time.

Well, together, we have slowly been surely been discussing the Ten Commandments, haven't we? And today, I would like to discuss the Eighth Commandments. We're getting through them. It's taking some time. But I would like to discuss the Eighth Commandment today, as with all the other commandments. It has both a physical application that's obvious. It just jumps right out at you. But it also has a spiritual application, and Jesus has his disciples living under the New Covenant, which is a spiritual application of God's law, much more severe in its requirements because it deals with the heart. It deals with what's going on in our heads, within our minds, our intent. Not just our actions, but the intent of our thoughts and our hearts. That's the spiritual application of the law that we'll be talking about today. But first, let's discuss the clear physical application of this short Eighth Commandment. If you'll turn with me to Exodus 20 and verse 15. Very short commandment. Exodus chapter 20 and verse 15, you shall not steal. It comes from a Hebrew word that is pronounced, ganab. It means you shall not thieve. You shall not carry something away or steal it away. You shall not get something by stealth. This Hebrew word, ganib, is used 39 times in the Old Testament.

We'll see in a few minutes a place that it is used. Referring to Joseph. There's a Greek word that is a counterpart to it in the New Testament. That's one that you may be familiar with because it's even used in our Western culture today. The Greek word is klepto. And even in our modern culture, we use a phrase like a kleptomaniac. That is for someone who has the inability to resist the urge to steal items. So the Greek word is klepto in the New Testament. The Hebrew word is ganab. According to Believer's Study Bible, here's what it says about this Eighth Commandment. The Eighth Commandment underscores the importance of human boundaries, putting boundaries on ourselves, responsibilities, making ourselves responsible, and limitations, realizing that our conduct should have limitations. This First Commandment protected any individual from having their personal possessions taken away from them. First of all, it protected them from kidnapping and into forced slavery. It included not taking someone's property or personable longings or cheating them using false measurements. It includes not taking someone's wife, which links into adultery. Adultery is not only a sexual act that violates God's law, but one of the parties in an act of adultery is married. So you're actually stealing an individual's affection from their mate. It means not taking someone's tools, not taking someone's livestock.

It includes not moving your property or boundary marker to acquire more land, make your yard bigger, to make your homestead larger. It includes not withholding someone's wages. If you agree to pay someone a certain amount of money for doing something, that you don't withhold paying them for that when it is done.

Or failing to repay a debt is also stealing. The problem with stealing is that it is purely selfish. It's unfortunately at the hardened core of human nature. A thief thinks they're entitled to have something free that another person has worked hard to acquire or has inherited something. It shows a lack of appreciation for the rights and needs of others. The items we possess are valuable, and we feel they belong to us, and we should have the same boundary for the possessions of others and not take something that belongs to someone else. Let's now go to Exodus 21, just one chapter forward. This is very important, and it ties in with a national sin that the United States is still dealing with many years later, and also the world is dealing with, because frankly, slavery is one of the oldest economic systems in the world.

It still continues today. Today, 50 million people are living in modern slavery in the year 2021. 50 million people. So this has always been a problem. It will always be a problem. Even the book of Revelation talks about the time of the beast power, that there's slavery. So it's also going to be occurring in the future, unfortunately. But let's see what this scripture says. Exodus 21, verse 16, He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, in other words, you caught, as we say, red-handed, that you kidnapped someone, if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.

The original idea of individual freedom and liberty does not come from our American founding fathers. They came upon the idea from scripture. They came upon the idea of liberty and freedom from history. The word liberty is found numerous times in the Old Testament, and this included liberty from debts after a period of time. It included liberty from voluntary servitude. If you were to get into great debts in ancient Israel, you would have to work for someone in order to pay off your debts.

The idea of the Jubilee year, which was instituted, according to God's instruction in the Old Testament, was to celebrate the right of people at a period of time to achieve liberty. Even if they had to sell themselves into voluntary servitude, no matter how deep their debts were, there was a time every 50 years when you reshuffled the deck and you offered people liberty. In Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10, it says, "...and you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.

It shall be a Jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family." As I said a few minutes ago, according to the United Nations, some 50 million people were living in modern slavery in the year 2021. This includes 28 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages. This is 13, 14-year-old girls being forced to marry, in many cases, a complete stranger because of their culture or because the family needs money and they're literally selling their daughter off as a slave or a concubine to someone in order for them to receive money for it, a dowry for it. Now, compared to the 2016 global estimates, this was 10 million more people were in modern slavery in 2021.

So it's not getting better, it's getting worse. As time goes on, more and more people are in modern slavery with women and children disproportionately vulnerable to slavery today. And the law of God, going all the way back to Exodus 21, verse 16, says you can't do that.

You cannot kidnap someone and sell them and force them to work for you and force them to be removed from their sense of dignity and liberty and freedom. You just can't do that. Let's go to Genesis chapter 40 and see something that Joseph said himself. I'm sure you can recall. At this point in time, in Genesis chapter 40, he was unjustly imprisoned because he was accused of an attempted rape. Potiphar's wife was trying to entice him, attempt him, and rightfully so, he resisted her. And she made a move on him. She grabbed his coat as he fled out of the room, and she told her husband, this man has attempted a sexual-aggressive act towards me, and Potiphar sent him to prison.

So while he's in this prison, he comes upon a gentleman, actually a couple of gentlemen, but we're just going to focus on the dream of the butler, a man who had been Pharaoh's butler, or cupbearer.

And we're going to pick it up here in verse 13 of Genesis 40. Now, within three days, Pharaoh, this is Joseph talking, will lift up your head and restore you to your place, and you will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand according to the former manor when you were his butler.

Verse 14, The word stolen is that Hebrew word, ganab. Same word used, thou shall not steal. I was stolen. I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews, and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon. I have not raped anyone. I have not sexually, aggressively attacked a woman. I'm innocent, and here I am in this dungeon. So Joseph refers to his brothers selling him into slavery to the Ishmaelites, or Midianites, for 20 pieces of silver. That goes back to Genesis 37, verse 28. And then they, in turn, sold him off in Egypt to Potiphar. And that's the difficulty when you are in this kind of situation, when you have been kidnapped. It was his own brothers who kidnapped him, put him down into a pit, and sold him off into slavery.

And the Scriptures say here that that is not acceptable, that someone who does that deserves to die.

Let's go down to Leviticus, chapter 6 and verse 1. Leviticus, chapter 6 and verse 1.

See another aspect of, thou shalt not steal. So you couldn't steal a person.

You could not kidnap an individual and take away their personal freedoms and liberties. That was unacceptable, according to God's instruction. Now, Leviticus, chapter 6, beginning in verse 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, if a person sins and commits a trespass against the Lord, by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or about a pledge, or about a robbery, or if he has extorted from his neighbor, or if he has found what was lost and lies concerning it, and swears falsely in any one of these things that a man may do, in which he sins, then it shall be, because he is sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing in which he has extorted. So this is condemning anyone who either by trickery, by finding something that belongs to someone else and not saying that they found it, or pretending not to know about something that they've acquired or have, or extorting someone. You either give me this, or I beat you up, or whatever. You give me money, or I'll beat you up, kind of like the IRS. Anyone who is guilty of stealing something or extorting something, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which was found—I didn't find it, and there it is, it's in the person's home, right?

Or all about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore its full value, add one fifth more to it. So there's a 20% penalty on top of restoring what belonged to that person and give it to whomever it belongs on the day of his trespass offering. He also has to go to the priest and provide an offer and offering for his sin of being a thief, stealing from another person either outright or through deceit is a terrible sin. It was then, it is now. The thief had to restore everything back to the person, plus add 20% to it as a form of punishment.

Deuteronomy chapter 25 and verse 13, let's go there and see about weights and measures. Even today, if you go food shopping a lot of times, vegetables or whatever, they're weighing it, right? They're measuring it in some way. Well, it's easy to be cheated. What if the person in the grocery store has set this digital scale so that it's weighing heavier than the fruit really is? You'd be charged, you'd be paying more money for it.

And that was a common problem of them. They had little balanced scales. And if someone said, well, this is worth, you know, five pounds and it really weighed eight pounds, and then that's not a true measurement. Let's read about this. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, if a person sins, and I'm sorry, we're in Deuteronomy 25, you shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light. You have to be honest about your weight. If this weight, if you claim this is five pound weight, it really needs to be a five pound weight.

You shall have in your house, offering measures, you shall not have in your house, offering measures, a large and a small. You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure. You need to be so finicky that you're not taking advantage of people by having a weight or a measurement that is purposely wrong to your advantage so that you get more out of that person.

Again, you shall have a perfect weight, a just weight, a perfect and just measure that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. Many commodities were sold at that time, as they are still today, or exchanged by the weight of an item or how long it was, and an individual was not to falsify how much something weighed or how long it was by trickery or deceit. This is stealing by deception, which is also a violation of this eighth commandment. So that's just touching upon a few Old Testament scriptures.

Let's now go to the New Testament. We'll begin with John the Baptist in Luke chapter 3 and verse 3. Luke chapter 3 and verse 3. If you'll turn there with me. John the Baptist, very similar to the message that Jesus had, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Prepare the way for the Lord, make his path straight, every valley shall be filled in every mountain and hill brought low.

The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough ways, smooth in all flesh, shall see the salvation of God. This is obviously prophetic, and it's talking about the time when the kingdom of God will be on earth, and the earth itself will be refashioned and remade. Verse 7. Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, the brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

Again, this is John the Baptist. Now Matthew's account, Matthew chapter 3 and verse 7, says he was specifically talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. According to Matthew's account of the same incident, the same story, John continues, Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance. You're not showing any change. You're not showing repentance. You're not showing that you were walking in evil, and now you've turned around and you're walking towards God. You just want to be part of the group. You just want to fit in with everyone else, so you come up here to be baptized so you can be part of the crowd.

And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. They thought they were superior because they were the children of Abraham. And John says, That doesn't buy you anything. And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?

He answered and said to them, He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none. It's a cold winter night. Someone doesn't have a coat. It's snowy outside or it's cold. And you happen to have two coats. You can't wear two coats. So take one of those coats and give it to that someone who obviously is in dire need. It's terrible to be cold, to be chilled all the time.

That's not a good feeling. And he who has food, let him do likewise. You see someone who's starving, obviously they're hungry. And you've got more than you could possibly eat. Help them out. Give them something to eat, is what John is saying here. Then tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teach him, What shall we do? And in verse 13, John says, and he said to them, Collect no more than what is appointed for you.

Don't steal from people. Don't take more as a tax collector than you should be taking. You see, John's telling the tax collectors that they shouldn't seize more taxes than beyond what a person should have to pay. Many times in this part of the world, many had a territory to collect their taxes from. Tax collectors had a little region, a neighborhood, an area. And the way it worked, the authorities just asked them for a lump sum.

All right, here's your region. Here's your territory. You owe me X number of shekels, and you've met your obligation, Mr. Taxman. So what did they do? Well, what they did is anything that they collected above what would be the lump sum they were allowed to keep for themselves. And this made it tempting to take advantage of people, to extract, collect, or extort, or threaten people to pay more in taxes than they should have to pay.

And that was stealing. And this is specifically why John the Baptist brought this out. All right, Matthew chapter 15. Let's see what Jesus says. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 10.

A little bit of a controversy here.

Jesus and his disciples are not in the ritual washing before they eat a meal, which bothers the Pharisees because they had an additional law on top of the law of God. And Jesus just refused to do it. This is when he had called the multitude to himself. This is Matthew 15.10. He said to them, hear and understand not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a man. When his disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? But he answered and said to them, now he's talking about tears, and we had a sermon a few months ago on tears. Do you remember that? Jesus is referring to the Pharisees as tears here. Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. But that's what they were. They were just tears. They weren't converted. They weren't really adding anything to the environment or the situation. Usually what they were doing is just causing controversy and trouble. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind leads the blind, both fall into a ditch. So Jesus is saying they have no credibility whatsoever. Then Peter answered and said to him, explain this parable to us. So Jesus said, are you also still without understanding? You just don't get it, do you? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters your mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? Right? We eat it. It goes into our bowels, and a few hours later it is expelled through a unique system of creation. Right?

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. What's Jesus concerned with, the Pharisees? What's going on in their heads? Not some physical action of washing your hands, but their attitudes stink.

Deep in their hearts, deep in their minds, they are vile, self-righteous, judgmental, and that is what bothers Jesus Christ about these individuals. As with all of the commandments, Jesus applies a spiritual application to the eighth commandment as well.

Our heart is capable of stealing things from people that go far beyond taking a personal physical possession. A spiritual application of the law includes not stealing a person's reputation by slander, not stealing a person's dignity with unfair criticism or humiliation, not stealing a person's trust by manipulating them or tricking them or giving an insincere proclamation. This can include hiding our true intentions, again, getting into the heart, what's going on in our heads. It can include wasting someone's time, and they can't get back that time when we waste it. It may be stealing from our employers by wasting time or by pretending to work instead of actually working. Look at the scammers trying to steal from others in the social media. Every day I receive emails that are just from scammers. Oh, please, you've won $100 million. Just click on this link and type in your social security number and give me your bank account, and we'll deposit $30 million into your account. Sure you will. I mean, social media is just flooded with people trying to steal from other people, deceiving people, trying to manipulate other people through their emails and through their messages, all in an intention of trying to get something from someone that is another person's possession. And that's an issue. That's a problem. It can be taking another person's novel idea and not giving that person proper credit. These sinful motives all come from the heart, and they reflect the way of get rather than the way of give. An example of this would be the intent of Judas Iscariot in John 12. You may recall the story. He took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, and it was anointed, and Mary anointed the feet of Jesus, and she wiped it with her hair. She was rebuked by Judas. Remember that story? Who pretended to care for the poor by implying that the oil should have been sold and given to help the poor. Do you remember that story? But as verse 6 states, quote, This he said not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box, and used to take what was put in it. End of quote. So it's the intent of the heart, going far beyond physical actions and literally taking something else, taking some physical or tangible thing away from someone. When the young man came to Jesus in Matthew 19 and asked him what was needed so that he might attain eternal life, among the things Jesus told him to do is, you shall not steal. In verse 18. Near the end of the ministry of Jesus in Matthew 21, he entered the temple, and he drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, and he said to them, quote, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. This is because they were selling these items to make a profit. They weren't there for noble reasons to help people convert their coinage into something that could be used in the temple or out of a noble feeling, help someone to be able to have a dove to meet the requirements of the sacrifice of the Old Testament. They were making profit from all of these activities, and that certainly disturbed Jesus.

Let's go to Romans chapter 13 and verse 8 and see what Paul said. Maybe Paul had a different philosophy than Jesus. Maybe Paul was more enlightened than Jesus.

Let's see what Paul says. Romans chapter 13 and verse 8. Paul says here, Oh, no one anything except to love one another. That's the debt you and I owe each other is to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. That doesn't mean the law is done away. It means that you have fulfilled what the law is all about if you love one another. That's what the law points to. That's what the standard that the law is upholding. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. If there's any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Stealing always does harm to someone or something. There are no victimless crimes in stealing.

Either the person we are stealing from is hurt or someone who depends on them end up getting hurt. When we steal, someone else has to make up the loss.

According to retailers, some 50% of retailers surveyed reported an average dollar value loss of merchandise of at least $1,000 in 2020.

This is part of what they call shrinkage, which in this case are people pilfering, stealing out of that store.

It's amazing, and even in my own little community, there are Dollar General stores, and for a while they had electronic self-checkout.

Well, they've shut down all the electronic self-checkouts because the stealing was so bad of people who had five items and would slide it through four times, right?

The steevery was so bad, they have shut down these self-checkout items.

And guess who gets to pay higher prices to make up for this loss?

Honest people! People who don't steal are the ones who have to pay more for virtually everything in order to make up for the loss of items that are stolen.

1 Corinthians 6 and 9. See what else Paul says here?

1 Corinthians 6 and 9.

He says, He says, Paul is pretty strong in this statement, and among the things that Paul calls unrighteous is stealing from others.

And according to the apostle, an individual with this sin will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Our final scripture today, Ephesians 4 and 28.

Paul understood he was dealing with people that were various degrees of conversion, including a lot of Gentiles who were not raised under the Mosaic law, unlike Jewish believers were from little children.

They were taught right from wrong according to God's moral law.

Little Jewish children were taught the Ten Commandments, but a lot of Gentiles were coming into the church, and they hadn't been brought up under that moral understanding or those teachings.

So Paul says here in Ephesians 4 and 28, Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor.

In other words, earn the things that you want. Rather than stealing what you want, here's a novel approach. Work for it. Earn it. Deserve it. Rather than just stealing it.

Working with his hands what is good, that they may have something to give him who has need.

So you work hard with your hands, and you acquire wonderful things in life and material blessings, and then you can give some of those to others who are in need. That's the fulfillment of the Christian walk.

That's the calling that God has brought us to.

Again, Paul is emphasizing the way of giving and service towards others, and not looking for what you can get that is free or easy by simply stealing it.

Well, today we've looked at the Eighth Commandment, and brethren, we have to be very careful because we may be stealing from others in very subtle ways, particularly with the spiritual application of the law.

We may dismiss this commandment because our society is centered on deceit and fraud. Again, all you have to do is check your email and see the kind of messages that you're receiving, what ends up in your spam folder, the lies, the exaggerations, the fraud products that are being offered to you, people trying to steal your personal information to take advantage of you.

We live in a society that is centered on deceit and fraud. So let's please take a good look at our lives, and let's make sure we are respecting both the physical and spiritual application of the Eighth Commandment.

I wish you a wonderful Sabbath day.