Bandits, Beware! - Part A

The commandment itself implies when it says you shall not steal. It implies that somebody's been own something in order to have it stolen so it implies that private property is rightful. It's okay to own something socialism would say that everything belongs capitalism would say everything belongs to the individual.

I think both of those are wrong. The Bible would say it all belongs to God. If you saw Doris Payne walking along the street. You probably think she was a nice elderly grandmother. She's known for being well put together well-traveled and very charming but if you measured or maybe other pole you'd be shocked to learn the charmer is one of the most notorious jewelry things around with an international career of stealing fine jewelry around the world reaching back five decades.

Well today here and connect with Skip weekend division skip. Isaac begins to impact the eighth commandment, the one the commands is not the steel she continues her current teaching series, God's top staff. This series is a dynamic and current look at the 10 Commandments and will most of us don't have a career as thieves. We've all been affected in some way by stealing. We'll see what God's word is to say about that here just a moment, but right now this month. Special resources in high demand. So here's more, Thomas Jefferson Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, CS Lewis, all our outstanding man with amazing life stories in all of history one biography stands out above the rest.

I'm excited to announce the release of my new book, the biography of God which gives an in-depth look at God's character and nature, diving into the theological and personal profile of our heavenly father, I invite you on the journey to search the Scriptures to discover who God is and how sensitive he is to the human condition. This process will both lift you up and humble you. Here's how to get your copy of my newest book, the biography of God skips the book is our thanks when you get $35 or more today to help keep this ministry only air, call 800-922-1888, or give online securely and connectwithskip.com/offer plan to stay tuned after today's teaching for some extended thoughts from Skip and his wife Linda now turn to Exodus chapter 20 verse 15 enjoying Skip Heitzig. I was reading an article from the Associated Press. It seems that a man bought a brand-new car and drove it home to show his wife, Zoe pulled into the driveway got out of the car, ran inside to show his wife tell his wife to come out. Will his wife stopped him inside the house didn't go out immediately. She said that she had a gift for him. She anticipated his excitement over this car and she had a nicely wrapped gift. He opened it up and it was the club familiar with that the club is that device that attaches to the steering wheel of a car to dissuade any would-be thieves from ripping it off. He sought and was so excited.

Thank you honey for being so thoughtful. You knew that I excited about this car, so club in hand, husband and wife went out from the house into the driveway where there brand-new car had been stolen while they were in the house. True story. How sad.

What a feeling of vulnerability and despair. And if you've ever had anything ripped off. You know that feeling back show of hands, how many here have had anything stolen from you, raise your hands up, look around. That's like all of us. I've never had a car stolen. But I had a bicycle stolen, among other things. Once I pulled into my after Sunday service in the my garage kept the garage door open.

Five minutes I went upstairs just to change close come back down in that link the time somebody had been watching and stole my mountain bike that happened to me twice in the same house but it's not as bad as my next-door neighbor. My next-door neighbor and his wife went out for a weekend. A moving truck pulled into their driveway unloaded everything in the house into the truck and drove away. Now I saw the moving truck, but I thought somebody was moving in.

I did know that somebody was ripping off those who had already moved in a minute look like a regular moving truck.

They stole everything I know you're thinking I want to live in your neighborhood. There is been problems with thievery stealing. Ever since the beginning of humanity. Hence the need for the commandment you shall not steal. I even got an article last night somebody emailed it to me. Somebody in Singapore stole the Bible from a bookstore and the judge sentenced him to four months in prison.

The judge was quoting the Bible to them and said young man. I suggest that the next four months in prison, you read that Bible. In fact, he marked it page 60 you'll find the words you shall not steal, but we discover as I mentioned, from the beginning of time people have had problems with it. Archaeologists have discovered watchtowers in the ancient fields, a place where somebody would be keeping watch over crops over animals over houses to keep watch over property, less the thief would come in and steal it. Another ancient way of thievery was moving boundary lines usually boundary lines were marked off by rocks so what people would do and it was along the Old Testament against it, but they would move their boundary line ever so slightly get up in the middle of the night.

Move that rock just an inch or two into your neighbor's property and then in a few weeks you move another inch or two will over time you can acquire a plot of property.

I even heard a story don't how true it is, but I heard it guy walks into a convenience store comes up behind somebody wanting to buy some many sticks spoke something in his back and the thief says stick him down in the victims as what I think supposed to be stick about in the thief that all that's how it goes.

No wonder I haven't made any money at this thing while it was Martin Luther who in his day, said only a small percentage of thieves are actually hung if we were to hang all thieves.

Where would we find enough rope you save it Skip what is that have to do with us as God's people as Christian people aren't Christians, the most pure, the most honest in all the world will something so there's a sociologist from Princeton University by the name of Robert with now who study this.

He studied people asked at ethics based upon their belief system and he believes this is true. He noted that there is less stealing, cheating and tardiness and bending of the rules among those who attend church at least once a week. Those involved in evangelical fellowships. Demonstrate an even higher ethical standard in the workplace.

You say that's great news that's the way it ought to be not so fast. Not everybody agrees with Robert with now, George Gallup, for example, in his famous Gallup poll organization has also studied Americans and religious Americans and he studied things like people reporting on their income tax or expense accounts, and he noted there is a large percentage of Americans that don't think cheating on their income tax or expense reports is stealing and he said and I quote professions of faith are not often followed by ethical performance. So who's right Robert with now or George Gallup answer that matter.

What matters today is about you and me how we fair under this commandment well the commandment as I said is simply stated. Verse 15 is only for words easy text to make it through in one Sunday you shall not steal for English words in Hebrew.

It's even simpler to words translation from Hebrew would simply be steel not.

You can't get any simpler than that.

But what I like to do is unpack this commandment. First of all, we notice this commandment is a primary commandment. Let me explain what I mean, it's not just the Bible were we find this command. It's not just in the Judeo-Christian heritage where we find. You shall not steal.

It seems to be a value highly held in virtually every culture, every civilization, it seems to be a generally accepted standard of the human race. Not so with some of the other commandments, for instance, the first one I am the Lord your God, you will have no other gods besides me. Yahweh that every culture holds to that or the second commandment you will make no graven image when you worship me. Not every culture values that but this one it seems is different. Its primary its basic and just about every civilization would agree this is good. Don't rip people off so you could go back to ancient Egypt or ancient Babylon, the famous code of Hammurabi, which shows all of the ancient laws of that culture and you find that this commandment is mentioned in the Old Testament, which were in Exodus 20. The principle is stated in verse 15, the practice of the principle is outlined in chapter 22 of Exodus and it would seem as I've gone through that chapter and others that God in the Old Testament wants the victim to be compensated and the criminal to be punished, not vice versa. Compensated. So for instance if in the Old Testament you were to steal something you do, you pay it back and add 20% compensation if you steal an animal you pay it back double so if you still want to pay back to if you still for you pay back eight compensation if you steal an animal and you kill that animal or sell the animal you pay it back four or five fold get pretty expensive to be a thief and if you steal a human being.

We call it kidnapping. The punishment is the death penalty on the news. Not long ago there was a girl who was caught she was trying to figure out a way to get people's money still couples money by pretending to have them adopt her baby.

She had recently had a baby. She bring her baby and they fill out forms she would take a down payment of some kind and go on to the next couple using her baby to steal people's money now.

A note about the Old Testament there was no prison system back then interest.

It was all about restitution and are today. People go to prison and sit under the experts in prison and figure out how to do it better and they get out of there even more refined. In some cases and their crime.

No back then it's you work it off, man, you pay it back. There's going to be restitution and compensation when we moved to the Roman culture. The Greco-Roman culture, we discover that they also looked dimly upon thieves and more stringently did they punish the thief. It's not that they had to pay back if you are caught in the act of stealing, you would be publicly flogged or worse. Remember who was dying next to Jesus Christ on the cross in the Roman era to thieves. Mark tells us being put to death for their crime of thievery and insurrection help in our culture.

The American culture, where there is the new victim mentality. This is a huge problem right before second service today, 70 came in. She said what you what he what commandment you covered today.

I said, you shall not steal season good because I just got broken into last evening my car right out front. Somebody threw a brick through my brand-new card and still the carbon broken to install things from the big problem. I did a little research I went online and I found one online legal source that said shoplifters cost US businesses approximately $16 billion a year. 16. That's not chump change $16 billion a year from shoplifting the same legal source estimates one out of every three new businesses will close fold and due to shoplifting is that shoplifting whose shoplifting must be the very poor right that they need to survive that they have to do that to stay alive.

Not so one Washington source said 70% of all shoplifters are in the middle income bracket 20% are in the upper income bracket. Their rich only 10% of the shoplifters that are caught fall into the low income bracket. Then there's hotel theft 500 million year.

Some hotels say that one out of every three guests in a hotel, steal something on a towel robe refrigerator.

I don't know what they steal.

One out of every three guests steal something. There's even an ad in a classified column in a university medical journal reading will the person who stole the jar of alcohol from room 303 kindly return my uncles appendix. No questions asked.

That desperate, what would you do with an appendix. Anyway, few years ago there was a strike in New York City or garbage strike garbage collector strike and in a big city when you have a garbage collector strike. It's it's bad it gets stinky really quickly, so garbage collectors. The sanitation engineers weren't picking up the garbage. One New Yorker had an ingenious way of getting rid of his garbage every night he'd wrap it up and place it in a box and put it on the front seat of his car every day.

It was God got stolen so we got rid of his garbage that's pretty smart.

This guy you knew human nature didn't he wrap it up and the guys I'm taking Maddie take it home. It opened up. It's just garbage.

Got a love that it's a primary commandment something else about this commandment as we unpack it. It's it's a presumptive commandment.

You see the commandment itself implies when it says you shall not steal in implies that somebody's going to own something in order to have it stolen so it implies that private property is rightful.

It's okay to own something that socialism would say that everything belongs to the state capitalism would say everything belongs to the individual. I think both of those are wrong. The Bible would say it all belongs to God. Psalm 24 says the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof. So here's how it works. God owns everything, but has made you a nice stewards of some things stewards of managers of it. I bring this up because every now and then you'll run into well-meaning, very zealous Christians who say well if you're truly a spiritual Christian you'll sell everything and you pool your resources in a communal communistic socialistic kind of awake, like the early church. The point, like Ananias and Sapphire, and others who sold property and laid the money at the apostles feet that they say is true spirituality. That's New Testament.

Well first of all, it was never enforced in the New Testament. It was always voluntary was never a commandment, it was done by necessity, because the people the church in the New Testament they were losing their jobs. The Sadducees were firing all the people that work for the temple because of their new messianic beliefs. So by need, they had to sell things and pool their money together know the Bible would endorse private ownership or should we say private storage. Here's why it's so that as you look at what God has entrusted to you, and I and seeing others who have a need, we could be instruments to meet that need to know God sees hard work is on Joe's you continue your busy day. We should give thanks for jobs and chores that keep our hands busy. Just heard. Part one of the teaching titled bandits beware and tomorrow will continue the second half of this feature. This is connect with Skip weekend edition thank you for joining in today.

Skip a line you have some more things they like to share with us today, but first I want to let you know more about our current teaching series, God's top 10 dynamic look at the 10 Commandments. Skip unpacks them he helps us grasp not only why they were important when God originally gave them why they're relevant today with ordering information for you in just a moment but first let's go in studio with Skip and his wife Lydia right this dealing topic is very tricky nowadays because we have the introduction of some gray areas. I'll say like technology and digital media. Is it stealing to copy someone else's MP3 file, or download a song or movie year go to the website and kinda began the stealth fleet that we forget about some of the ways that we really could be some healing. You know this whole thing came up years ago with the website it was Napster and stuff could be mass-produced and downloaded and and an artist started finding that people were listening and taking their songs and they weren't getting any any remuneration for you know me, I love vinyl. I buy records to hook shadow so II believe in rewarding artist for their work in their art and I believe in but I buy the album and the album has a CD in it or download it that I can go and get an iTunes and downloaded as well. I pay the price for and so I don't believe in, rip the music off. I think we need to be fair and square in the workman is worthy of his of his wage family and friends who are artists as well. We had a lot of friends here, musicians, and so we can sympathize. It's not an easy life and and they do count on all those ways have at bringing in some revenue yeah and then maybe there's some workplace things I now back in the day I worked at this radio station not this one here, one in town and I had put a couple of stamps on some letters that I mailed personally and I think I to come a couple pans or maybe a pad of paper and one day my client time the Lord said your stealing and I was just aghast. I think I would never walk in and sticks up under my shirt and take out of the store and I ate that he connected me that that was really in essence stealing and I say tell me. I not only needed to confess. But you know if back to work. Whatever would be the Nina Hon. Mount Annas I went in and told my boss that I was a thief fell out of her kids and then when explaining the stamps and pencils and was like online goodness that I think it's really great that we keep a very close relationship with the Lord that he can show us, even those small details when it comes to this topic.

You know, one of the biggest areas of thievery. This time, and a study was done I read recently where in the workplace people admitted and they did several layers of serving the people basically admitted to wasting enough time equal one whole day of a five day work week and whether it's taken a longer break or longer lunch or just doing whatever they wanted to, but that's what that's 20% of the bosses time and you know I just I really believe we need to honor the Lord with our time to be a witness and maybe it's easier in Christian organizations to think everyone is a believer eldest, forgive me and love me but you especially. It's the Lord's time and you want to honor him and honor his name. Thanks N yeah I remember you can get your copy of the entire God's top 10 series is an audio CD package for only $39 plus shipping when you order today@connectwithskip.com or call 1-800-922-1880 God is made a stewards of all we possess.

So what does that look like talk about that more next time here and connect with Skip weekend division presentation of connection so you the God's never changing true and ever-changing time