Surprised by the question. You know, you'd think in preparing for an interview like that that you might anticipate what questions the reporter's going to ask. Well, she clearly did not do that. So she was stunned and she was quiet for a moment. And finally she said, well, from the 1% of society who make more than a million dollars a year. The reporter explained to her, now listen very carefully, Even if you taxed the 1% at 100% of their income per year, which by the way is ludicrous, because if you tax 100% of anybody's income, whether it's the 1%, the 99%, you think they're going to stick around? No, they're going to go to Switzerland, okay? But if you were to tax the 1% at 100% of their income, you may have enough to pay for all college tuition and pay off all college debt for one year, but then you would have no money for Medicare or any other government paid program in the rest of the country. So it's simply impossible. There isn't enough money to go around. And the bottom line is you've got to work for it yourself. Healthy economies simply don't work that way. But this interchange reminded me of a simple piece of wisdom that the author of Ecclesiastes gave in chapter 5 verse 19. And this is what he says. And he repeats this refrain throughout the whole book. He says in 519, everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, excuse me, everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and to accept his lot and rejoice in this toil, this is the gift of God. Here's something that the Bible says. The Bible actually speaks to this, I think, misconception that some in our society have. God has determined the financial and social lot of every person in society. Now, that doesn't mean that within the course of their life it's not going to change by their own hard work. But God has determined that some people are going to be born into a tribe in Papua New Guinea, and other people are gonna be born into the middle class of American culture, and still others are going to be born into a royal family. And guess what? That's what God determined. Is it fair? Is it unfair? My question is, is that the right question to answer? It's one of those things where it is what it is. That's what the Lord has determined. And if we want to give out this cry of injustice, to whom are we giving it? We're giving it to God, which is never really a good idea to try to argue with God. Now, some are born with little, some are born with much. Some are born with little and they work hard and they get much. Some are born with much and they squander it and lose it all and die poor. But the bottom line is that though God has made everyone equal in their being, He has not given equal talent, wisdom, and riches to all. And though He has given much to some, little to others, and a moderate share to still others, He has given something equally to all. And this is what Kohelet mentions in 519. He's given a particular portion and work. He's given you a portion, a lot in life. He's given you something. And as Jesus articulates in his various teachings throughout the gospels, they are talents. It doesn't mean by that simply your own talent, like I have a talent for basket weaving or I have a talent for whatever. He's talking about everything with which the Lord has entrusted you. It is a stewardship. It is a stewardship of the money that you have and the money that you don't have, the talents that you have and the talents that you don't have. He has given you a stewardship and the bottom line is you are to make much of that. you are not to depend for all your uh... college loans to be paid by the government and by the way talk to you know any other person who work their selves through college in they'll tell you why is that fair The Lord has given us a particular portion and work, and what a person does with that portion and work is a combination of how much wisdom they exert and how providence plays out in their life. We do not have the right to everything, but we do have rights to what we do own and what we do work for, and this is the essence of the Eighth Commandment. The Eighth Commandment is not that we have a right to everything, but the Eighth Commandment is we do have a right to what we do have. And if somebody is to take it away from us, then that plain and simply is theft. So here's what I wanna do tonight, very quickly. I wanna start with what the Eighth Commandment assumes, and then I wanna look secondly at the ethic of the Eighth Commandment, and then finally look at the Eighth Commandment in light of Christ, okay? So let me start with what the Eighth Commandment assumes. Three things that the Eighth Commandment assumes, okay? First off, the Eighth Commandment assumes the right to own personal property. Now before I go any further, God is not a capitalist, he's not a socialist, he's not a communist, okay? I think he's not a Republican, he's not a Democrat, he's not a Tea Party, whatever. Whatever party affiliation or economic system that you want to throw out there, God is not any of those things, okay? But at the same time, Whereas the Bible may not speak to international foreign policy, for example, it does speak to certain things. And when you look at a commandment like the Eighth Commandment, you cannot understand the Eighth Commandment without assuming that somebody has the right to personal property. Because here's the thing, how can something be stolen if it wasn't first the property of somebody, right? Okay, so it's like with the Eighth Commandment, which forbids adultery. It assumes the covenant of marriage. So with the Eighth Commandment, to steal is an assault on the dignity of another person by taking the toil of their hands or the fruit of their creativity, okay? And I think that, you heard me say it's an assault on their dignity. And I'll talk a little bit more about this. The fact of the matter is, is so much of what we have is bound up with who we are, right? So much of what we have is bound up with who we are. The brand of clothes that we wear, the kind of car that we drive, okay? And you know, obviously that can turn into ideology, but the bottom line is it's something that we worked for. We plunked down on the counter our hard-earned cash, and we bought that sweater, we bought that house, or we bought that car, and all of that came from the sweat of our brow, and sometimes the blood of our brow, because we worked so hard. So this principle is necessary for the functioning, the proper functioning of society. We must be able to trust people not to take our goods. Now we know that they do, and that's why we need to uphold an objective standard, okay? So the second thing that this assumes, is voluntary, not compulsory giving and sharing. Now what am I getting at here? I feel compelled in the context of the Eighth Commandment to say this, so here we go. Communism promotes the abolition of private property. Just giving you a primer. Socialism promotes state ownership of the means of production. Now, I went to junior college with this cat one time, and he told me that the Bible teaches communism, okay? Have you guys ever heard this? Yeah, Bible teaches communism, all right? Where do they go? Well, turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter two. Turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter two. We're just gonna engage in a little myth busters here, okay? This guy's a great guy, claimed that the Bible taught a form of communism. And he went to Acts 2, verses 44 to 46. I'm gonna read that and then I'm gonna skip over to Acts 4, verses 34 to 35. This is what Luke says. And all who believed were gathered together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. Now jumping over to chapter four, verses 34 and 35. There was not a needy person among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to each as any had need. Now despite the assertions by some, this is not a communistic or socialistic situation and it doesn't argue for the abolition of private property rights. Let me just point out three things. Number one, it assumes property rights in the first place. Notice that those who sold the land sold their lands. Those who sold the homes sold their homes. It wasn't somebody else's home. It was their property and they voluntarily, not under compulsion, but voluntarily chose to sell them and help the needs of those in the community. And we'll get to that in a second. Number two. Well, this kind of follows up on number one, but it was voluntary. And notice, who is the group that we're talking about here? Somebody tell me. The church, Christians, okay? At no point does the state enter into the interactions between Christians here, all right? And again, if you're familiar with different, and I know there's a variety, Heinz 57, different variety of communism, socialism, there's a sliding scale, I get that. But I'm getting at just the principle behind it. The principle behind it is the state in some way, shape, or form, as it bears the sword, is compelling people to share, divide, and distribute. But we don't see that here. It's completely voluntary. Now third, and this is the most important thing, the recipients of this were not simply the church or the Christian community. But remember, this is off the heels of the day of Pentecost, you see. And the day of Pentecost, remember, 3,000 people were baptized. People were coming from all over. They were coming from different countries for the day of Pentecost, and guess what happened? Peter preaches that great message, the tongues of fire come down, the Holy Spirit comes upon the church, people get saved, and this brand new, radically different, redemptive historical shift takes place, and everybody recognizes, wow, something new and different and amazing is going on here. Jesus Christ is lifted up in the proclamation of the gospel. And so now all these visitors that came to Jerusalem, instead of saying, okay, that was a great day of Pentecost trip, now we're heading back to Africa or heading back to whatever, they're like, we're gonna stick around for a while. We wanna hear from these apostles, these men that sat at the feet of Jesus and were trained and discipled and have this deposit that they're handing down to the next generation, but where are they gonna stay? You know, all the ends, no room at the end, just like with Jesus and Mary and Joseph. And so, where do they stay? They stay with the early Christians. Now, there were many in the early church that had a lot of money. Who was somebody in the book of Acts that had a lot of money? Somebody tell me. Cornelius had money, that's true. Yeah, that's another issue. Barnabas had a lot of money. Barnabas was pretty well off. Just one example, there were many Christians who had a lot of money, and here's the thing, they decided to use, voluntarily, some of their money to sell their house, liquidate their assets, and give it to the apostles so that the apostles and the deacons that they had instituted, knowing the needs of the people, distributed as any had need." Now, I just want to say a few more things. This is not only voluntary, but this was a temporary situation that was abnormal and not normal. That doesn't mean That doesn't mean in churches that we don't try to do the same thing. In fact, we have a diaconate here who in fact does similar things. Gives money to people as they have need. But it's clearly on a different scale than it was on the day of Pentecost, okay? So I just want to say secondly here under this head that giving was voluntary and not compulsory, okay? Now number three, what the Eighth Commandment assumes is God's creation is an analog to man's creation. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 1, verse 26. Genesis 1, verse 26. It must be said that all things belong to the Lord, we know that. So when we say that we possess something, Really what we're saying is we are a steward of something, right? Because all things belong to the Lord. So on a vertical level, we're stewards. Between God and us, we're stewards of what he has given us. But now on this horizontal level, yes, I own it and you don't, or you own it and I don't. I can say that I own something, all right? Now this principle of owning and having dominion comes straight out of the creation paradigm to have dominion over all things. God in creating man says this in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, let us make a man in our image after our likeness. Now I've told you many times image and likeness in Hebrew, though they're different words, they're actually getting at the same thing. How do we image God? There's many different ways. We image him in righteousness, knowledge, and holiness. But here in Genesis 1.26, he shows us a specific way in which we image God. It says, Now, just a very quick Hebrew lesson here. When it says, let us make man in our likeness and our image, the syntax in the Hebrew after that phrase is what's called a purpose clause, which means that you should read it this way, let us make man in our likeness and our image, so that he may have dominion over the fish of the sea, et cetera, et cetera. So what it's getting at is, We image God in so far as we have dominion over all things. We take possession over all things. We are made in the image of God and just as God created all things and we see his glory in his handiwork, right? The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Just as we see God's glory, his image, and dignity in what he has made, so we see man's, well, man's imaging God's glory in what he makes, you see? So in the same way that God takes dominion over the earth and shows his glory in his handiwork, so man, in imaging God, shows the glory of God's image in his handiwork, in what he makes, in what he toils after, in what he possesses. So the issue here is man's dignity. When you steal from man, you are stealing something of his dignity. I don't think it's too far to say something of his glory you are taking from him as an image bearer of God, whether he's a Christian or a non-Christian. You are taking away from his glory. So those are the three things that the Eighth Commandment assumes. Now what I want to do secondly is I want to look at the ethic of the Eighth Commandment. And at this point, I'm just going to read questions 80 and 81. If you have your catechism out, you could read along with me. Question number 80, what is required in the Eighth Commandment? And we answer, The Eighth Commandment requires the lawful procuring and furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others. And then negative lead number 81, what is forbidden in the Eighth Commandment? We answer, the Eighth Commandment forbids whatsoever does or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor's wealth or outward state. All right, now I'm gonna do some meddling, so here we go. The violation of the Eighth Commandment begins with the violation of the Tenth Commandment. What is the Tenth Commandment? Anyone? You shall not covet, right? So if coveting is the igniting of the flame, then the violation of the Eighth Commandment is the house burning down, all right? What begins in the heart as a desire, God, you have not given me this car, and I see that Jacob has this car, and I really want it, so I'm going to steal it from him, okay? So what starts in the Tenth Commandment fleshes itself out in the eighth commandment, right? We're not to covet things that are not ours. If we have the means to purchase them and we do, fine. Okay, it's not wrong to desire something. It's not wrong for a little kid to be putting those coins in his piggy bank so that, you know, when he gets 10 bucks, he can go buy that toy at the store that he wants. But it is wrong in the process of desiring that toy or whatever it is, that we grow discontent with God because he hasn't given it to us, you see. And just as James says, sin gives birth to death. It starts small in conception and then it grows up, so it is with stealing. It doesn't start by just going in and saying, I wanna steal that. It starts by not being content with what we have. So for example, Proverbs 6.27, this is a perfect summary of it. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? What is the fire? The fire is coveting. So we will talk more about coveting in a few weeks. But just keep in mind, we need to guard our hearts from coveting. And you know what? I think in America, it's true in every country, but in America, especially so because the Lord is so rich, just financially so so blessed us financially. But we look around, I think even in this church, we look around and we see what people have. And then we look at ourselves and we see what we don't have and we begin to covet. And I would just urge all of us to be careful about that, OK? Now, how do we break the Eighth Commandment? I'm going to start my meddling now, okay? Obviously, taking anything that is not yours is theft, whether it is little value or great value. Pastor Ken told me that Pastor Gilman would always use this example, and I actually have used this many times, but you go into a bank, you write a check, you fill out your little slip, and you leave with the pen. Well, that's a federal infraction. You just stole a pen from a federal institution, okay? But, you know, I mean, no, you don't mean to do it, but what I'm saying is whether it is little value or great value, theft is wrong. Now, what are some examples of that that I know are controversial but I just want to speak to? Downloading movies, downloading shows, downloading music. Remember the whole Napster fiasco, okay? You can argue until you're blue in the face that copyright laws are not moral but they're utilitarian, okay? Do you understand the difference? To say that a copyright law on a Netflix movie or a Netflix show or like a movie or whatever the case may be is moral is in fact not true because the whole concept of a copyright law is after so many years, the copyright no longer applies, right? That's why you can go on to Google Books and you could find a book that was printed in 1878 and you could download the whole thing. Why? Because the copyright laws have elapsed. So if it were a moral issue, it would be wrong to take it forever. But since after a certain point, it's okay to take it, it shows it's not a moral issue in and of itself, at its core. It's a utilitarian issue, which means that they're trying to make as much money as they can for the creator of that particular product, okay? And the idea is after, depending on what the product is, after 25 years, 50 years, when the creator is dead, it doesn't matter anymore, okay? But here's the bottom line. This is a Romans 13 thing. If the government tells you it's wrong to download a movie, it's wrong to download a movie. What's that called? It's called piracy. You're a pirate if you download a movie. You're a pirate if you take music. You're a pirate if you take shows. Now, I don't wanna know if you're doing that, okay? It is between you and the Lord, but if we find out, we have to talk to you, so please, just don't tell me, okay? But it is wrong, in all seriousness. The eighth commandment forbids piracy in our downloading, okay? Secondly, squandering time is theft. Squandering time is theft. Now, I am as guilty as the next person on this, okay? You know, when YouTube first came out, everybody was fascinated with the cat videos, right? Watching every different cat video that you possibly could, passing it around, and then you could pass it around on Facebook, and then it was just a feline fiasco. But, you know, I mean, why do we do that? Because we're at work, we're bored, or we just, you know, we're procrastinating, right? We're procrastinating. When I was in college one time, I was in the dorm commons, and I should have been working on a research paper, and of course I wasn't. And what I decided to do is to grab a dictionary and look up the word procrastination and cut out a picture of my face and tape it right next to the dictionary entry procrastination. And then for the next 45 minutes go around the whole dorm and show everybody how funny it was. I wasted a lot of time in college. And, you know, we laugh about it. But the sad thing is I'm never going to get that back. I'm never gonna get that time back. And you know what? The most valuable thing that the Lord has given you besides your salvation and if you have a spouse, your spouse and your children, all that is time. Time is the most important thing because it is the space in which we image the glory of God by taking dominion over all things and harnessing them for his glory. Number three, stealing from God. Stealing from God. How do we steal from God? Well, we do do that. Yeah. Yes. Not not paying our tithes and offering. OK, now I'm not going to get into this right now, except to say. God doesn't own 10%, he owns 100%. He owns all the cattle that are on 1,000 hills. Every burst of energy that you have to get up in the morning and slap that alarm clock and get coffee in you and get going to work and make that money, clock in, clock out, it all came from the Lord. Tonight, before you go to bed, read Deuteronomy 8. And what God tells the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 8 is he says, you remember, when you come into the land, you remember, that I'm the one, I'm the one that brought you into the land, because what's gonna happen is you're gonna grow fat, you're gonna grow rich, you're gonna grow wealthy, and you're gonna grow prideful, and you're going to forget that if it were not for me, you would never have gotten into the land. So when you get into the land, don't forget, you remember, remember, remember. Zahar, it's the most frequently used verb in the Hebrew Bible, remember. And it should be for Christians as well. Remember, remember what the Lord has done for you. And so in our giving, I don't think it should be any exception. And remember, dear ones, that our giving is a form of worship. We do many things on Sunday morning and every single one of them from the call to worship to the benediction is worship. And giving of our tithes and offering is no exception. So stealing from God is one way. And then finally, and Eric already mentioned this, but refusing to give glory to God where it is due is theft. So, some people came to Jesus, tried to trick him, said, is it right to give taxes to, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? And you know what Jesus did. He says, why do you put me to test, you hypocrite? Show me a coin for the tax. And they brought him a denarius, and Jesus said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? And they said, Caesar's. And he said to them, therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. I have a question for you. Whose image is imprinted on you? God's image is imprinted on you. You are a bearer of God's image. And just as Jesus said to give to Caesar, it's his coin, it's got his face on it, God's got his image on us. And every single thing that we say, every single thing that we do, every thought that we have, every thought that we don't have, is to be for the glory of God. We are not to be thieves. Now how does, finally, number three, how does salvation change all of this? How does salvation change all of this? Well, first, when Christ comes, thinking of the eighth commandment in light of Christ, he pardons us of the guilt and penalty of sin. Praise God for that. But secondly, he redeems us from our golem-like slavery to stuff. Do you have a golem-like slavery to stuff? Now, you know, I want to be careful here. Take sunglasses, for example. My wife stopped buying expensive sunglasses years ago because what happens to them? They get scratched, they get lost, they get shuffled around. I, on the other hand, am very meticulous with my sunglasses. I've had them for seven years now and I have a case for them. I have a little bottle about this big with a sunglass cleaner and then three separate, very soft, pads that I use to clean the lenses, okay? Now sometimes when I'm wiping my lenses and I'm looking at my kids, I feel like Gollum, my precious, you know? Now that's not necessarily wrong, but here's the thing. If that becomes the end all, be all, then we are golems that break the eighth commandment, okay? We should not be slaves to stuff, but we should be slaves, as we heard this morning, to the Lord Jesus Christ. So what Christ does is he comes to us, eighth commandment breaking thieves and pirates that just finished watching a movie that we bought off the internet, and he redeems us. And Paul says in Ephesians 4.28, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. What redemption does for us is it turns our focus away from the inward, me, me, me, precious, precious, precious, and it says, the Lord has blessed me with so many resources. I want to give to somebody else. Who can benefit from what I have? That's what redemption does. That's what redemption does. So that's what we should be looking for in myself. Now my work is viewed through the lens of what I can give from the abundance of what I've earned. So in conclusion, Paul speaks of Christ in Philippians 2.6 and he says this, Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Are there anybody raised on the KJV in here? King Jimmy, anyone? No? Yes? Does anybody know what the King James uses for the word grasped here? They actually got a little closer to the Greek here. Huh? Anyone? Philippians 2.6, that Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God. Robbery, that's right. He did not count it robbery. Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness to create food, to worship Satan, and to throw himself down from the temple. In all three temptations, Jesus was offered a shortcut to power, a shortcut to possessions, and a shortcut to authority. He could love and obey God the Father by going to the cross and receiving from him the kingdom covenanted to him, or he could bypass the cross by creating the bread, bowing down to Satan, and immediately receiving the kingdom of the world. Now we know that wouldn't happen, but that was the temptation put before him. And guess what? Our father Adam, as we heard from this morning, was tempted in a similar temptation by the same serpent, and he succumbed to the temptation. Adam took what was not rightfully his. God said, don't eat of this tree. He took it, robbery. But the second Adam didn't. The second Adam didn't count equality with God something to be robbed. But he emptied himself. He refused to be a thief, and he decided to be an obedient son. And because he decided to be an obedient son that did not submit himself to robbery, we have salvation. So we are thieves, but we have a covering in the obedience offering, sin-toning work of Christ. And just remember, as Christ died, there were two thieves on either side of him. And one of them mocked him and went to hell. And the other one mocked, but then repented and recognized him to be the son of God and had faith. And that thief on that day was promised by Jesus that today he would see him in paradise. And so it is with us. If we have faith, we will be with Christ in paradise. Let's pray. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for your grace. Forgive us of our thieving. Lord, I pray if there has been conviction here tonight in any of us that it would not be avoided, that it would be acted upon, and that your spirit would give the grace of follow through. We ask these things in your son's name. Amen. If you have children in the nursery, please go get them. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Yep. Oh, announcement uh... prices pregnancy center