What can you do about theft and corruption in an age where it just seems to be growing? There are more and more problems around us. What can you and I do in these days? Well let's look again at God's word in Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments. We will look at the whole section again of the Ten Commandments, but we'll focus on the eighth commandment in particular today. Exodus 20, it says:
And God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. “You shall not murder.“ You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour. “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”
As we look at this passage, we need to look at that little command, “You shall not steal.” The difficulty lies in the fact that we live in a time when crime is rampant all around us. It is a case where we are becoming more and more angry because it seems like every bit of news we get on the media is always about robbery, hijacking, house breaking, highway robberies, muggings and fraud. Here in South Africa, we actually hold world records in some criminal areas. We need to remember that God has not called us to this. I think all of us are sick and tired of crime and theft. The question then is: what do we do? We need to see that crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly. Now that's a big tongue twister, but crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly. Which then leads us to the question, where do we start? Where can we find a solution? If we, for instance, found a robber in a house or in the church, we'd collar them, take them to the police station, lay charges and hopefully the justice system would then do its work in this country, even if it is sometimes slow. However, what can be done about other areas of theft? What about when there is the temptation to cheat on our taxes? Now, some of us get very uncomfortable when we start talking about taking things that do not belong to us in other areas, than obvious theft. What are we to do if crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly? What does the Bible say about stealing, apart from, “Do not steal?”
Firstly, we need to observe that there are different types of theft, one is stealing from people. Stealing from people is to deprive another person of any number of rights. Stewart Briscoe puts it this way, “The first right, is the right to property.” Stealing is depriving somebody of their property. The deprivation of property, is theft. The Bible says that God gives a person some possessions. It is God who gives us property and God will praise us, or God will condemn us, for how we use the property He has given us. Whether we use that property selfishly, for our own purposes or if we use that property to help others. The Bible says, in Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.” Everything you and I own belongs to God and all of us have been given assets in trust. God has entrusted you with what you have and when you realize that fact, that everything you have comes from God and belongs to God. That means that when you steal from people, by depriving them of property, that is theft against God because it's His property. It is also theft against the person to whom God has entrusted that property, because crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly. This leads to the question: how are you using what God has entrusted into your care?
We can also steal by depriving people of liberty. ‘Liberty’ or ‘freedom’, are just big words that are bandied around today a great deal. The freedom to be who we are, the freedom to do what we would like to do, is all wonderful. However, freedom in many respects, in our day and age, has gone too far. It has gone too far, when we catch a thief and put him in jail (remove his freedom) where he simply learns to steal in more knowledgeable ways, that makes them temporarily less likely to get caught, when they come out of jail. The recidivism rate of criminals going back to jail is too high, there is something wrong with our system. Do you know, that the Bible gives a different solution to putting criminals in jail (by taking their freedom) for theft? Do you know what is the biblical solution? The biblical solution is that a thief had to make restitution for the things they stole by earning the money that they needed to pay back or make a payment for what they had stolen. They were to repay the assets that they had taken. But it wasn't just to payback what they took, it was double payback. Sometimes four times and even up to five times the value of the thing that they stole, depending on what type of asset was stolen. That can be read in the scriptures, in the Old Testament law, it saw that the victim was compensated for the theft and the criminal was punished by restitution. Strangely, in the case of kidnapping, where a person's liberty was stolen, the punishment was capital punishment - the death penalty, because that person's freedom had been stolen. The deprivation of liberty was a very serious offense.
The first type of theft is the deprivation of property, and the second type of theft is, deprivation and liberty, while the third type of theft is deprivation of dignity. When we deprive somebody of their dignity, we steal. This occurs when we speak badly of a person. When we steal a person's good name. When we attack their character, perhaps, by gossip or slander. The problem with all gossip and slander is, that type of theft is impossible to undo. What happens if we stealing somebody's character by gossip? We need to turn from that. If you're someone that hears gossip, immediately take the gossip and say, “Let's go and check these facts, is this true? Let's go to the person that you are talking about behind their back and ask them.” Well two things happen, the gossiper soon stops the gossip because their gossip is exposed, but another part of that process is that the person that is slandered or gossiped against gets a chance to set the record straight and we can ask whether that is true. Be careful of depriving somebody's dignity by talking about them behind their back.
There's another way we can steal. We can steal by depriving people of opportunities. What does it mean to deprive people of opportunities? Well, there are people like employers, your employer and my employer, have a right to make a profit to benefit from our labour. Now, if we steal from our employer, if we steal their time, then we are depriving them of the opportunity to benefit from our labour. If we arrive late for work, we are actually stealing. If we leave early, we are stealing from our employer. If we give less than our best on the job, we are stealing from our employer and we are not giving maximum effort. You may say, “Our employer is not paying us fairly, it's unfair.” Do you know God doesn't say that because they're unfair, you can steal. In the Bible, God repeatedly commands us to be faithful. Even if we are dealing with an unfair employer. Even if you think you're entitled to what is there, be better at your job. We are far better off than slaves. We have been given an income, whether it's good or bad, whether our opinion of that income is good or bad is immaterial. The point is, we must give our best “as unto Christ,” in the job that we have been given by God. When we call in sick, when we're not actually sick, not only do we steal from our employer but we're also lying. Often, with theft, goes the other sin of lying; it goes hand in hand with theft. When we take home stationary from the office, we can deprive the opportunities for profit of our employer.
We can also deprive our families. Parents, can deprive their children of time with them. Husbands, can deprive their wives of loving them and giving themselves sacrificially to them. Wives, can deprive their husbands of dignity and honour as well as not walking in step with them as the scriptures teach. Children can deprive their parents of the respect and honour that is due to them, as children are commanded to honour their parents. Over and over, we can deprive people of the opportunities that God has told us to give.
We can also deprive the government of the opportunity to govern. The government can only govern by the will of the people and if we do not pay our taxes and give honour and respect where it is due, we are sinning against God, who has put that government in place. The Bible is very clear on that and Jesus said when He was being tempted and tricked by the rulers of His day, He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.” Are you giving the government what belongs to them, the government that God has put into place? The state must not be regarded as the enemy. We need to play our part in our community, in our country and even on this continent, as we serve God. We need to remember that we must not steal from anybody. Everybody has their own view on whether to pay taxes or not, but God says your opinion does not count. He is very clear that you and I are to pay our taxes, all the duties and the honour that is due. Romans 13 and many other passages deal with this issue, so we must not deprive our employer, our family, or the government of opportunities.
There's a fourth group that we can deprive of opportunities, that is the poor. We are not to deprive the poor of opportunities. You may be poor or rich, it doesn't matter. There is always somebody better off than you and somebody worse off than you but the reality is, we must not use whatever God has entrusted to our care to the detriment of those who are less fortunate than ourselves. For instance, the deprivation of opportunity of the poor, takes place when the rich exercise economic control over the poor. We need to be aware of that. The Bible says that we should stay away from debt. Owe no man anything except the debt of love. We need to be very careful to pay what we owe, even before the sun goes down. Deuteronomy 24:14-15 says, “Pay the poor men before the day is over before the sun goes down.” That also means, when we're dealing with the poor, perhaps when they have run into a crisis and they do not have the resources or the reserves to cover that crisis, we must lend money but not at an interest rate. Rather lend without usury. Help those who are in need and as Jesus said, give, to those that ask without expecting them to pay back. By God’s will, they will pay back but in a situation where they do not, God will deal with them. You and I must be faithful and help those that we can help. Remember that Jesus cares about every one of us and we need to remember that we can steal from people in all these ways. Depriving people of property, depriving people of liberty, depriving people of dignity and of opportunity.
There's a fifth way that we can steal from people and this is a more subtle way. This is depriving people of innocence. What does it mean? It's when somebody seduces another person into sin. It's not always between the sexes necessarily, but it's the deprivation of innocence that takes place, for instance, when bad friends lead the naive or the young to perhaps drink or get drunk, leading them into drugs or the use of peer pressure to cause people to sin. Jesus taught us that depriving somebody of innocence is very serious. He used the analogy that , “Better a man have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the deepest ocean than to cause a little child to sin.” Sometimes we think it's funny offering a child a drink, a smoke or a drug and we see the humour in something that is actually evil. We are to be so careful of depriving people of their innocence. We need to see that there are many different ways to steal.
Stealing is more than hitting somebody over the head with a stick, holding a knife to their throat or pulling out a gun in a dark alley. Stealing is more than armed robbery or bank robbery. Stealing in the light of the Bible encompasses many different facets. People that perhaps think of themselves as honest, are sometimes shocked to realize that they have stolen in one or more of the areas just mentioned. The problem of the guilty is something we need to address, we need to remember that annexing somebody else's property is wrong because crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly. What do we do?
Well, if we steal from people we also need to remember that we can steal from God. How do we steal from God? Well, the Bible speaks of two ways we can steal from God. Firstly, by contradictory behaviour. When we rob God's credibility. When we say, “I'm a child of God.” “I'm one of God's children.” “I’m apart of His family.” We say all these things but we behave in a way that dishonours His name. We steal from God's credibility. When we go to church on a Sunday but live another way from Monday to Saturday, we are robbing God's honour. People slander His name because of our bad behaviour yet, we claim to be Christians, but our actions are hypocritical, they deny the Jesus who died for us. That is to steal God's honour, by contradictory behaviour.
There's another way we can steal from God and that's to steal His tithes and His offerings. Malachi 3:7-8 reminds us that we can rob from God when we do not give Him His tithe. We are to give the whole tithe. Even in the New Testament Jesus said the same to the pharisees when they were being corrupt. Not just in their tithes but in their treatment of the poor. He said that God desires justice and mercy as well as the tithes, it's both. We are not to just give our money to God through the local church and say, “Well, I can live as I please in the week.” We say, “I'm going live, I’m going steal from the poor and do my own thing.” Instead, we are to give faithfully to God as He has been faithful, and we recognise that this is from You Lord. We should say, “Thank you Lord and we ask that You receive this first tenth as an acknowledgement from our hearts that you've entrusted this to us, it is from You. As you called us to do, we have to set that aside as a sign.” That tenth you will use to spread the good news of Jesus Christ around the world, hence, we give our tithe. We do give it faithfully. We are to give it even before we pay our taxes, if necessary, but we are to give. Some people may say, “Well we don't live under Old Testament law.” That is true, however, if the Old Testament tells us to do something, we are to go beyond that law. Jesus says that our righteousness must surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were very good at tithing, who gave a tenth even of their herbs. We are not to get distracted by minuscule issues, but we must start with the tenth. Start with that and give even more, as God blesses us with more, give a 15th or a 20th. A millionaire gave away 90% of his income and God blessed the remaining 10%, he lived more than comfortably. God is faithful. God sees your heart and if you're going to love money, then you're not loving Him. We can start with putting Him first in our finances because if you don't, you're stealing from God and we are to give surely more because we are now under grace because we are eternally grateful to Jesus for saving us. We are blessed by God and we recognize that everything we have is from His gracious hand. We start with that basic tenth and as Malachi 3:10 goes on to say, “Then see, if God does not open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out more blessings on you than you can ever imagine or contain,” for God, is a faithful God, when we are faithful. The great challenges are, are you stealing from people or are you stealing from God? What do you do about that?
Lastly, we need to look at the cure for stealing. What is the cure? The cure is found in God's word. In Ephesians 4:28, we are told, “steal no longer.” It's as simple as that; steal no longer. What then must we do? Work at the job that God has given you. Work on the assets. Care for what He has put under your control. Why must we do that? Well, that verse tells us that you might have assets to share with those in need. If stealing is a problem in your life, then stop. Repent, turn to God and ask Him to forgive you. Change your thinking about all that. He has entrusted you and if you have been stealing make restitution; pay back what you stole. Work hard as if you were working personally and directly for Jesus Christ, not for that boss, not for that situation you may find yourself in. If you are your own boss, work as if your company and everything you have belongs to Jesus and do something useful, do what brings glory to God. Whether it's something small or big. God calls you to return what was taken and if necessary, two times, three times, four times, five times like Zacchaeus in the tree. We are to do what is right. Imagine what a witness it would be when you say, “I was wrong. I've asked God to forgive me and here I am to give back what I took from you. Please forgive me too and here is something maybe to say ‘thank you’ for your gracious kindness to me and for forgiving me.” That's a witness that would be something that the world would take note of and what must you then do? Do good. Work hard because you are to have not only enough to support yourself and your family but to help those in need. Those who perhaps cannot work because of disability or because of circumstance.
If all of us Christians shared what they have, there would be a lot less or maybe even no poor people. However, it does mean that you can make a difference for one, two, maybe ten other people but you can make a difference if you will share with others. Something that is productive that comes from your life impacts all of society and you can make a difference to the whole problem of crime and corruption, by doing your job faithfully. As you are paid, give to the needy. We have a blessing that we may be a blessing to others.
I need to ask you, are you maybe only a small time crook (if there is such a thing) or maybe you're a big time robber. Well crooks and robbers fail to handle property properly and all of you have to realize that everything we own is actually entrusted to us by God. We don't really own anything, even the breath in our lungs is a gift from our Creator. You and I, must firstly, turn back to God. Restore to the rightful owners what you have stolen and then ask God to forgive you and ask God to graciously change your heart from selfishness, from covetousness, to a heart of gratitude because He is a good God and He created you. Work for Him because you are eternally grateful for your life and you are eternally grateful to Jesus for eternal life. For things of this world are passing. You can't take anything out of this world, but you can take people with you. Will you will go to heaven because you are a faithful steward and will Jesus will say to you, “Well done good and faithful servant enter into your rest.” Or will you be sad or blushing or embarrassed when you stand before Him because you have failed Him as His creature and perhaps even as a Christian? Today turn from any theft, turn and do what is right and follow Jesus, wholeheartedly and He has given you now an incredible gift of salvation in Christ. He has saved you and all the riches of heaven are yours. You are a joint-heir with Christ. Now because you have so much, share with others, share even the little that you have with someone that has less. Be part of God's solution to our crumbling, corrupt and hurting country. May we as Christians be the solution to the needs of our land. Join me now and pray as we ask God for His help.
“O Lord Jesus, we perhaps need to confess that we have stolen in some way or another. Forgive us Lord Jesus. Not only forgive us but by Your Holy Spirit, empower us to put right. To make restitution where we need to and to live a life of witness that our words and our actions match. That we turn from stealing. That we stop stealing and work hard that we might have much to share with those in need around us. O Lord Jesus, change us we pray. Help us to put off unrighteousness and to put on Your righteousness and holiness and be Your people in word and in practice. For this we ask in Your powerful name, for You alone can change us, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, may your life be lived to the glory of God and to Him be all the praise. When people think of you and talk about you (hopefully not in gossip) but may it bring glory and honour to our God and Saviour now and forevermore. Amen.