Dr Greg Bahnsen - Economic Ethics: Thievery (Part 9)

This morning we come to the last in our series on economic ethics, and the title of the sermon is Varieties of Thievery. We're going to be reading from God's word at Matthew the sixth chapter, and I will begin our reading at the ninth verse, Matthew 6, 9. Hear now the word of God.

After.

This manner, therefore you pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And thus far, the reading of God's Word. We've been in this series on economic ethics nine weeks. This is the tenth. We come finally to the conclusion of our thoughts. And I think before I come to the application of everything that I've said before, it wouldn't be a bad idea to summarize the previous nine installments. I began by telling you that the standard of economic ethics for us is the better than gold standard. As the 19th century Psalms says, the law of the Lord is more precious, is more valuable than gold. God's law is our standard and all matters for living, including economics, according to that law of God. We saw secondly, that private property is a God given right. Thou shalt not steal, the commandment says. And that means that God honors the stewardship that he entrusts to people. Property and wealth that he gives to them and others have not the right to infringe upon that private property is the foundation of Christian economics. Thirdly, we looked at the free market, the disciplined allocation of scarce resources, as part of a biblical approach to economics. Because, as you recall in the parable of the Hirer, God shows that men have the right to engage in free contract for what we would call free trade. A man can go out and do with his own what he wishes to do, and he can employ people at different times of the day and pay them whatever he sees fit to pay them. Others are not to intrude in the marketplace. It is in fact the mark of the beast. Isn't it in the book of Revelation that he intrudes in the marketplace and tells people under what conditions they can buy and sell? Fourthly, we considered the topic of wealth, how wealth is a blessing of God, not something to be displayed, and yet it is Also a snare. It is a temptation. Wealth is used by God to prove the hearts of people, whether they rely upon themselves or upon the Lord, whether they are quick to forget his mercies, or whether they know that everything comes from his hand. Fifthly, we consider tithes and taxes as two instances of how our private ownership can be, if you will, mitigated. We do own what we own. It is ours. But God gives to two authoritative agencies the right to lay claim to a portion of our income. He gives to the state the right to tax us for the proper purposes of the state. Which isn't to say that that's what's happening today, but they have that right. And he gives to the church the right to tithe. And those are two obligations upon us. Sixthly, we consider the poor and the demands of charity. That a person who sees his brother in need and shuts up his bowels of mercy against that person, as John puts it. John says, how can the grace of God have been realized in that person? If we're constantly justifying the fact that we ignore the poor and don't take care of the poor, then there's a real question whether we know the charity that God's shown the Haris, the. The grace God has shown to us. And then we considered honest money.

The fact that Federal Reserve notes, in.

Our country at this time in history and also throughout history in many places, what has passed as money has not been honest money, but it's been fraudulent without proper backing. And we considered what that shows us about the moral condition of our society and our own hearts. Eighthly, we consider debt and usury. The ideal in the Bible is to be debt free, not to be a slave of any man. And when it is necessary to go into debt because of need, because of poverty striking you, others are not to profit from that misfortune. And so we don't charge interest to those who need poverty loans, as we call them. And then last week we looked at labor and leisure, how God calls us to productive work and a high quality output in our productive work, recognizing at the same time the demand for a resting that God gives us, not as an option, but as a requirement that we honor the Lord of the Sabbath and rest on the Lord's day. Well, those are nine lessons which if you learn them well and will apply them systematically, you should be able to answer just about any economic question that arises. It may call for the application of more than one of these, or it may call for the application of them in a particular order to work out the difficulties. But these, I think, are the foundational principles of Christian economics. Private property, the free market. Wealth is a blessing, but a temptation. The right of tithing and taxing the poor and the demands of charity, all honest money, debt and usury, labor and leisure, that just about covers it all. And so we come then to our conclusion this morning. And what I want to talk to you about this morning is all kinds of theft. And my point is it's everywhere. Theft is all around us. The violation of the eighth Commandment, which means the violation of these principles we've been studying. The violation of the eighth Commandment is just pervasive about us. I am sure that before I began this series, if you would have asked me which was the more prevalent sin violations of the seventh commandment, thou shall not commit adultery, that is sex sins or violations of the eighth commandment, thievery. I would have been impressed that our society is guilty of violations of both of them in great extent. But because of the high visibility of the sex related sins in our society, I'm sure I would have said our society is characterized by sexual infidelity far more than by thievery. I'm not so sure of that anymore as I stop to put together today's lesson and the varieties of thievery around us. We are just living in a dishonest age. It's the atmosphere we breathe. So much so that I really worry, for the sake of my children, that they can grow up with any sense of integrity and honesty, because everything they see about them caters to violations of the eighth commandment. So I want to talk about all kinds of theft this morning and show you how they are everywhere. Begin with an illustration, some obvious ones. Just think of house theft here, burglaries, if you will. The Metro section of the Register for Sunday, August 21st of this year, 1983, reports at length on what is said to be, quote, Orange County's most popular crime, burglary last year, 1982. Listen to this. 37,711 homes were burglarized. That's just the reported ones. You realize that a good number of people are already hardened to what's going on. And if they get ripped off for a stereo or something, they know the police aren't going to help them or do anything about it. And they don't even report it.

They.

But these are the reported instances. Almost 38,000 homes in Orange County. That is just one little plot of ground.

And all of Southern California, which is.

Just part of California and the whole Continent here. It's just amazing there'd be that many burglaries in one year's time. In fact, I think the leading illustration, the whole section is on that, by the way. But the leading illustration is interesting. This is the sign on the front door of a Laguna beach home. It says, attention burglars. This house has been burglarized four times. There is nothing left to take. Please proceed to the next house. Jennifer Keller said she was tired of getting burglarized. Only half facetiously, she put up the sign. But 45 days later, at the insistence of her husband, who said it lacked taste, and her next door neighbor, who just plain didn't like it, the sign came down. The following day, Keller's house was burglarized for the fifth time in two years. The only thing left of any value in the house was a rug. A short time later, Keller and her husband moved. I was angry and upset, said Keller, who was a deputy public defender. I didn't feel safe anymore. She said she and her husband had started bringing a baseball bat to bed, keeping a flashlight under the pillow, and jumping at the slightest sound from outside. And then she says it took her about two years to get over that feeling. And then she goes on about the psychological effects of this. It's just incredible. The irony of that is that, you know, she puts up the sign because she's so angry, and the day after she takes it down, they're burglarized again. Five times in two years. I know that's extraordinary. How many people, you know, in our congregation have been burglarized once in five years? I know that it's happened at least once in our congregation. It may have happened more than that. So that is an extraordinary case. But it tells us something about our society and the effects of it. The article, I mean, the section goes on to talk about the great expense of. Of alarm systems and security systems that people are installing because of burglary. Well, that's just one instance of violation of the eighth commandment, house theft. There are other cases that can be talked about that may not seem as obvious but are still instances of dishonesty. I think here of opportunism. In April of 1982, a woman in Hialeah, Florida, received by mistake a state revenue sharing check in her mailbox. The check was for $404,000. $750. Well, 4,000. $4,754. That's a lot of money. This woman tried to open a checking account with that check and when the authorities were called in immediately, since the check was not her own, she was trying to get it passed into a new account with her name on it. The authorities came and arrested her. And you know what the woman said? I mean, talk about lame excuses. This woman said she had mistakenly thought it was her income tax refund. $404,000 to make you feel a little bit better. During the very same month a Wall street clerk went out to lunch in a snowstorm and found on the ground, on the ground an envelope containing negotiable certificates of deposit worth $37.1 million.

Negotiable?

We're talking about something he could have gone to a bank and taken care of as his own. And he immediately returned it to the investment banking house that owned the bearer certificates which had lost them out of the carrier pouch that lunch hour. And he says he never considered keeping them. It didn't even cross his mind to think about keeping them. And when he was told that the banking house was going to give him a $250 reward, he shrugged his shoulders. He said, I didn't expect to get anything out of this in the first place. Two sharply contrasting attitudes. A woman who will lamely try to deposit a check that doesn't belong to her as her income tax refund and a man who could have gotten away with a 37,000, I mean $37 million mistake, didn't even want $250 reward for it because it wasn't appropriate. House theft opportunism. In fact, our society is so much lacking in honesty that I think also of the unusual objects of theft. Theft that you maybe don't think about. But something that catches my attention, there's a war that is going on. Virtually a war going on. It's being waged by libraries around this country. Rare volumes of literature are being taken and sold for very fancy profits, as was reported in Time magazine October 19th in 1981. Some illustrations. London's University College Library lost a 1638 edition of Galileo's Discourses. If any idea of what that is worth? A 1638 original edition of Galileo. Yale Sterling Memorial Library has lost rare maps which they cannot trace. Apparently Cal State Long beach has found 27 original volumes of Captain James Cook's Voyages of Discovery missing from the library 27 volumes. And UC Riverside, an instructor was arrested for making off with no less than 10,500 books from the library valued at over $440,000. He had been doing this over a 10 year period. Now you see, this ends up Costing quite a bit more than you may realize. It not only costs public access to this rare material, it not only costs the library the value of these things as part of the equity of a library fund, but it costs them. Because you know what libraries do when they find out they've been ripped off? They go to elaborate measures to protect themselves. Chicago Public Library has invested in a $1.7 million system to control circulation losses. You say, why would they spend that kind of money? From 1979 to 1981, they lost $2 million worth of books. That's why, in fact, the electronic device at the University of Pennsylvania, which was also quite expensive in the same range, is said to have reduced losses at that university by 39%. And thus it paid for itself in a little over three years. Libraries are losing so much week by week by week that 2 million dollar security systems pay for themselves in 3 years time. I mean, the illustrations can go on and on. I've just given you some rather dramatic ones. That's the kind of society we live in. People don't think anything about walking out of a library and holding onto the book, keeping it. When I was a seminary professor, one of the students. This is not the usual sort of thing at seminary. I don't want to believe that it is. But one of our students we had to suspend for quite a period of time under disciplinary measures because it was discovered that he was going to one of the local college libraries and going to their religion department, the section in the library, checking or not checking out, just picking up the books that he needed for assignments at time the same seminary, and keeping him for his own library through a real quirk that was discovered and his dorm was investigated and all these things were found out. Well, now that shows you the extent of things. I mean, even a seminary student doesn't think anything of it. And his excuse was as lame as the woman who said she thought it was her tax refund. He said, they've got so many books there, they can just reorder it. What do you mean they can just reorder it? It costs money to reorder it. It costs somebody money. Theft is all around us. Think about cheating. In December of 1982, Cal State Northridge announced the suspension of nine students who on an introductory biology exam taken the previous May, turned up with 28 identical wrong answers on the exam. I don't know if you've done much teaching. I've done a little teaching. I can tell you that that's the worst thing for a cheater. You see, if you cheat, you better make sure you get the right answers. Because when you cheat and get the wrong answers and they correlate with what somebody else has done, it's a dead giveaway. And when nine people show up having 28 identical answers, so they were suspended, you know what they did? They hired a lawyer who sued the university because the students rights, I mean the civil rights of these students allegedly had been violated. A Los Angeles survey conducted by KNXT in the public school system, a survey of 3,600 students showed in 1978 that 43% admitted. This is just the ones who will admit it. 43% admitted to cheating by the time they were in the fourth grade as a regular habit at the college level, cheating has reached epidemic proportions. 70% admit to cheating on examinations, especially in the technical fields of math, science, computer analysis, and so forth, because the students, they say, had not adequately prepared, but they wished to get good jobs after graduation. And that's just the way you get ahead in this society. Not only were they willing to admit that they had cheated, the vast majority of that 70% didn't feel any qualms about it either. They were so cynical about the way our society runs. They said if they don't cheat and get ahead, then they're just going to get walked on by those who do. Our society is sick. You think of these obvious forms of cheating and of dishonesty and of stealing. We also have our don't work schemes. I have perhaps the most blatant don't work scheme I've ever seen. That was handed to me when I was teaching an ethics course. This comes from the Financial Management Associates in Phoenix, Arizona, and it's entitled how to Steal a Job. I'm going to read it to you. It says, and we mean steal a job. The job market is no place for nice guys. If you don't get in there with fists flying, you'll be trampled by all the greedy, pushy winners who will steal jobs and promotions away from you. Hard work and honesty aren't rewarded the way they used to be. If they were you, you'd have the job you want right now. You see, all of a sudden we're all guilty, right? I mean, the fact that you're not getting ahead, somebody's taking advantage of you. You can get a job because hiring. Oh, you can't get a job because hiring is based on the whim of some jerk in the personnel department. Or worse yet, instead of being hired on the ability to do a job, you're hired for having the time and money to get a college degree. The guy in the drafting department knows as much or more about the project as the engineer in charge. But the engineer gets twice the dough because of a degree. The young carpenter or plumber can't get any job even though he works twice as fast. Because of a union seniority system. The odds are against you getting a job. Everybody's out there pushing and shoving and trampling. You've got to push harder, shove farther and trample faster to get ahead. Want some tips from a real job stealing thief? Can you believe I'm only halfway through? I can't believe the attitude of this thing. 1. If you don't have a college degree, lie and say you do. Keep a fake one handy. 2. If you're a single woman and you.

Have to sleep with the boss, do it.

Then get the creep over a barrel by threatening to tell if your salary doesn't go up. Right now, these and many more gutsy ideas are yours for the asking. In my new book, how to Steal a Job, I've outlined complete plans of attack for different circumstances. This book will fill your head with possibilities you've never dreamed of. For instance. 3. If you don't have experience, we'll show you how to create a corporation that will vouch for your last three busy years. You can even throw in a letter of recommendation from the chief executive. Do you understand that last one? You contrive this corporation. It looks real good. And then you write the letters under the contrived name to the officers of this corporation. You go to somebody else and you say, I'm a real successful guy.

Here's all this background.

Of course it's all made up. It says wild far fetched only for the timid. The courageous could probably add a chapter or two. If you're one of the go getters in this world, you're all. You've already heard enough to excite you. You know how the game is played. Hard hitting, dirty and tough. If you can accept this reality, you're ready to steal a job. Order now for your own personal survival. I don't think in puritan society a person who wrote that sort of thing. He may not have been, from the government standpoint, exiled, but I don't think he would socially have had a friend friend around anybody who'd be willing to even talk to a man who openly lies and cheats and advises others to do so, to get ahead. And so we have the obvious forms of burglary in our society. We have the Opportunism we have the theft even of things like library books, the cheating, the don't work schemes. And then I think also of the hoaxes that we suffer from time to. In November of 1982, a mother in Las Vegas staged the kidnapping of her son, knowing that she'd be given $10,000 by the police for a ransom drop. And then she turned over the money to her accomplice in the fake drop at a casino. Of course, the accomplice was then caught by the police and he confessed that the woman he had devised this plan. I mean, that's bad enough. I think that rude really is bad enough in itself. But note this. The paper says the case cost the Metro officers 25 men taken off of other legitimate cases and 228 hours of overtime, which is a lot of money. A lot of money for the sake of a woman trying to get $10,000 the easy way. In September of 1982. I mean, this is the grossest of all. The paper reported on a San Jose man who had faked an accident where allegedly a truck had sideswiped him while he was on a motorcycle. And he collected $100,000 from Farmers Insurance and on another policy, $110,000 he collected because he had lost a foot in the accident. The insurance investigator. And it turned out that he, he and a friend had, with a hatchet, hacked off his own foot to collect on the case. For $200,000, it was worth losing a foot. Credit cards. In May of 1983, a witness testified before the House subcommittee that there are schools of thieves to teach how to steal credit cards. And not just to steal. Steal them, that's the easy part. But to use them for charges up to $5,000 a day without being questioned, because all of the purchases are kept below the limit where authorization is required. As long as you go from store to store and make one purchase. But keep it below the limit where they check the credit card. You can steal a card and use it for this 24 hour period and get away with $5,000 a day. And according to that report, $1 billion a year is lost on such credit card schemes in our country. New and amazing forms of theft are available in the modern world too. I think of computer files. In August of this year, numerous stories appeared, so many that I didn't even know which one to choose to tell you about. Telling of groups of local computer hobbyists who have infiltrated computer systems which have external access but coded security guards against people getting into them. And these hobbyists Work at being able to break the codes and being able to get in. Now, see, if you were able to get into. Of course you wouldn't. There wouldn't be external access to a bank, for instance, or if there were, I mean, incredibly stupid today. But if you worked on the inside of a bank and you were able to be at the computer, all sorts of little electronic bleeps, mistakes that you would make could really help a friend out, who in turn might help you for that little favor. And this is one of the major things people are working on, how they can protect against this kind of fraud taking place. Well, theft in our society is not just a matter of all these bizarre forms of thievery that I've been telling you about, but it also is a matter of wrong attitudes. If you can change gears, just think for a minute of the kind of propaganda that we hear in editorials on the news. What is being taught in our school system about barriers to national growth. I don't know how many times I have read or have been told that colonialism has caused the poverty of Third World countries. That Western riches has come because we have colonized other people. Nobody ever stops to think about the facts when they say those sorts of things. The United States was once a colony, right? Australia was once a colony, right? Canada was once a colony, right? And yet they're among the richest countries in the world. Hong Kong continues to be a colony in the east, and it's the second richest political unit in Asia. It's just preposterous to say that colonialism keeps people poor. Some countries which have never been colonized, I think of Tibet, Nepal, Liberia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, which you say may be in the process of being colonized, but never has been in the past. They remain among the poorest nations of the world. Colonialism is not the source of poverty. Other people say that you have to have lots of land if you're going to have national wealth. But are poor countries poor because of a shortage of land? Think about it. The first really wealthy country in Western history was what?

Great Britain.

Hardly overwhelming in its land mass. The wealthiest country in Asia is Japan. Again, an island nation. Hong Kong is nothing but a rock sitting next to land rich China. And yet prosperity in Hong Kong is possible on a scale unrealized among the masses in China. Some others say, well, it's contact with Western capitalists that's the cause of Third World poverty. We're advantage of people in other countries. That's hardly true. The west has invested knowledge, the west has invested capital in Such countries and all to their improvement.

Malaria.

I'll just take two examples. Malaria. And the threat of malaria would continue to stifle development were it not for the Western import of DDT to kill the dreaded tsetse fly. That brings malaria and stops the development of land that could be developed for farming purposes. Gold and cobalt, which are taken out of the ground in some of these countries. They exist 4,000ft under the surface of the ground. Which in an undeveloped country that doesn't have machinery to extract it is as good as not having gold and cobalt. The Western import of machinery, technology. Know how these sorts of improvements has not impoverished these people. It's given them a level of living they wouldn't have known otherwise.

No, as a matter of fact, I.

Don'T have time to give you my.

Long lecture on this, but there are five things in particular that keep poor countries poor. And they all have to do with attitudes. Not with land, not with capitalism, not with all these other sorts of things. But five things in particular. First, the attitude that prosperity is always achieved at the expense of the less well to do. An attitude that leads to contempt for enterprise. That's the first thing that keeps poor countries poor. Secondly, seeking wealth through expropriation and redistribution.

Because of the attitude that whoever's wealthy.

Has gotten at the expense of somebody else. Thirdly, contempt for the institution of private property. Fourthly, the naive belief that government, government ownership and control of property and industry will bring general riches to all. If only the government were in control, then we'd all be happy and wealthy. And fifth, the absence of or reduced presence of free trade, as you find with tariffs and quotas to a country. My friends, if you want to do an empirical, factual analysis to a country, those five characteristics are found most prominently in poor countries and least in the rich countries of the world. Our government itself has to be indicted for many of the violations of the eighth commandment that are all about us. We've seen the varieties of thievery. We've talked momentarily here about wrong attitudes. Let's look for a moment at our government. I think of the debt society in which we live in. In March of 1980, the nation's corporations held a one and a half trillion dollar debt. The federal government owed $949 billion and homes, offices and shopping centers were $1,362 billion deep in mortgage debt. This is overwhelming. But now look what the government does, though. I want you to pay attention to this. A tax break is offered to debtors on their interest payments while on the other hand, the accrued interest in savings and investments are taxed by the government. So if you have money that you're gaining on for investment or sitting in the bank, the government wants part the of of that money. But if you're in debt, the government will mitigate your tax bill because of the interest payments you're making. I mean, there's nothing subtle about that at all. The government's saying, be in debt. Don't be on the opposite side of the ledger. The result is a definite slant in government policies toward people indebting themselves more and more. Our inheritance tax. Think of a very obvious violation of the eighth commandment Jesus has said in Matthew 20:23. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you devour widows, houses, and for a pretense, make long prayer. Our government, for a pretense, talks about caring for the poor and wanting to help the needy. And yet our government, through inheritance taxes, expropriates the property of widows and orphans all the time.

Because people can't keep up with their.

Inheritance tax or can't keep up on their property tax. When they inherit something, the government ends up taking it from them. Yet for a pretense, they show that they're concerned for the poor or excessive taxation. Nothing less here than government induced decapitalization of our population. In the name of concern for the poor, political scoundrels year after year plead.

A great concern for the needy.

And instead of tending to that, out of their own considerable personal wealth, they tax and tax and tax and tax. I think of a song that probably you don't listen to very much, but Creedon's Clearwater Revival sang once about It Ain't Me. And in the song, they talk about what the government will ask for, you know, and the government wants something from you. And so the song says, so what should we give? And the answer is, more, more, more, more. And that's what the government does. Governments solve the problems created by taxation by taxing more. Many of the less wealthy in this country are glad to see taxes run high. I've seen this expressed many times, despite the fact that those taxes do very little for the genuinely needy. Because people say they want to see the wealthy humble. Taxes have a tendency to bring the wealthy down to the level where they'll understand what everybody else is suffering. So remember, the IRS and other tax agencies are but agencies of envy, voters envy. And when people complain about taxes, I hope that it isn't very long before you remind them that we get the taxes which we vote in in this country. If we do not have the moral stamina to vote against men who are going to increase our taxes, then we deserve the taxes we get. Then of course, there are the examples of government waste. I keep a file on this. It's fascinating to me. I won't bore you all morning long. It would take all morning to read just the ones that I've cut out of the paper. But instances of the government's use of our money. It's amazing where our money goes sometimes. In this article from April 15th of 1983, April 15th, obviously notorious for the day we have to pay our taxes. It talks about the proposed budget of $848.5 billion. It says it'll probably go to 900 billion, but who's counting? If you few billion here and there, almost half of that $424 billion in one year's time will be transfer payments whereby government takes money out of some people's pockets and puts it into others. Having mastered the art of international peace and conquered crime, government has graduated to deciding who gets the money that some people earn. Many of the recipients of that money will be government entities themselves. It seems less conspicuous for local governments to get grants from Washington than to be up front about taxing people for all the things they've decided they need. So you'll be helping contribute about 24 million to oil rich Houston and $668,000 to Palm Springs, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, Grosse Pointe and dozens of other wealthy communities.

Will line up for their share of.

What you ante up to date. Some poor people will get a pittance. The suburbs of Washington will continue to be among the highest income areas in the country. Just gives you a warm feeling, doesn't it? You'll be delighted to know that the Export Import bank will get an additional 1.4 billion to help bail out the big banks. The Synthetic Fuels Corporation will continue to subsidize oil companies. The Small Business Administration will come continue to subsidize inefficiency. The U.S. travel and Tourism Administration. Did you know we had that a tourism administration will stay in business. All told, the Office of Management and budget has identified about 30 billion in federal spending that can be fairly classified as corporate wealth. Of course, we're delighted to help. About 4 billion will be spent on consultants who will come up with justifications for more studies by consultants and higher spending. About 14.4 billion will go to the Department of Education. A recent Roper poll found that 83% of Americans believe that education shouldn't even be a federal function. But this department, which the president promised to abolish, will roll merrily along. And don't forget the author of the oil crisis, the Department of Energy. It will get 8.8 billion to produce roadblocks, higher prices and blizzards of paper. The person who wrote that is not.

In a very good mood about the.

Way the government spends money. I'm going to leave this up on the piano. Afterwards, you may just want to come up for fun and just thumb through a few of the interesting things that we spend money for. The magazines that the government publishes, slick production numbers that we pay for, for the trips that congressmen make, for the studies that are made of fascinating subjects that undoubtedly have helped us take care of crime and get to world peace. As the article says, lots of subsidies for congressmen, cafeterias and haircuts and all that government waste is all about us. And so I guess it's time to close. Close. We've seen all the thieves all about us now. We've seen all these incredible instances of fraud and opportunism and cheating and lack of integrity. We've seen how the government is ripping us off left and right and doesn't honor the eighth commandment. Oh, but maybe, maybe before I stop, we should say just a word or two about the worst form of theft, those forms of theft that we are guilty of. Christians are thieves too, and their failings are conspicuous. Let me give you some illustrations. I think of the profit motive. I talked about that in our series. You know, the lure of profits in a free market accomplishes a very worthwhile goal because it penalizes sloth and it penalizes non productivity. If we abolish profits, or as it's called in the literature, excess profits, if we abolish profits by somebody else's standard.

We will cater to envy in the.

Hypocritical name of social justice, it seems to me. And to abolish profits will simply redirect the energies of those who want to get ahead to more profitable ways of getting what they want, such as influence peddling in the political arena. So I'm not against the prophet motive per se, but you know, the lure of prophets can also become idolatry. And I have throughout my life met idolatrous Christians who are so concerned about prophets and about getting ahead that first Timothy 6:10 has been lost on them. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The the words right before this in Timothy are important. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. Being a Christian is no prophylactive, no automatic prophylactive against being greedy and covetousness. The 10th Commandment forbids coveting anything which is your neighbor's. The larger catechism tells us what the Tenth Commandment means. I want to read that for you in question, number 148. What are the sins forbidden in the Ten Commandment? The sins forbidden in the Tenth Commandment are discontentment with our own estate, envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor, together with all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his. Note the condemnation of discontentedness, the condemnation of envy in the form of jealousy, dis, desiring to obtain what your neighbor has, and the condemnation, envy as resentment. The desire to see your neighbor's station in life reduced, whether it profits you or not. Grieving at his good estate, wishing to have what he owns, and not being content with what the Lord has given you. You see, those too are violations of a property attitude toward wealth and money. And these are things which Christians, because they're so very well hidden in the secret recesses of our hearts. We think we're not thieves. We haven't cut off our foot to collect on an insurance claim. We haven't staged a hoax kidnapping so that we could get police ransom money. We haven't cheated on exams. No, but you know, we do covet, we do idolize the lack of contentedness. First Timothy 6:8. For we brought nothing into this world, and it's certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content. I'll be the first to admit to you that's not the way I think. I don't think I'm clothed. I have food to eat today. Anything else is gravy. You know, I tend to think we need more.

We need more.

It needs to be more comfortable.

It needs to be a nicer, you.

Know, situation in life. There's nothing wrong with trying to get ahead. But if we get ahead, because we aren't content with what we have, we're operating as idolaters and as greedy people.

Or how about the ties?

God says in no uncertain terms that refusal to pay the tiThe is theft. Malachi3 will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you say, wherein have we robbed you in tithes and offerings? You're cursed with the curse, for you rob me, even this whole nation bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. Malachi sent, so we don't pay our tithes.

And we think, well, hey, it's a.

Free will offering, so what's the big deal? It's theft, pure and simple. Theft in God's eyes not to pay your tithe. November of 1977 Christianity Today had an editorial which I kept because I think it's so good. It says, there are many ways to steal. I'm going to read it for you. I don't like to read during my sermons, but this can't be avoided. Ask most Christians if they steal.

Should they deign to answer?

They'll say, of course not. I know the Ten Commandments. The way may have too narrow a definition of what God meant when he said, don't steal. There are lots of ways to do it. There is so much stealing going on. In many countries, theft has long been commonplace. Iron rods permanently bar the windows. Solid metal doors are rolled down at the close of the day to go guard store entrances. Guards are hired to keep watch all night. In other countries, such as the United States, these precautions against theft have only recently become common. Now computer thefts are increasing, and there aren't even laws yet against all the ways to steal with and from computers. To borrow a library book needed for a class assignment so that others do not have access to it is an increasing crime on campuses. Embezzlement is eschwe. One hopes that Christians do not engage in such blatant stealing. But there are forms of theft to which Christians are vulnerable. If theft is understood as taking something from another, so that if replaceable at all, money and effort is required, then surely it's theft to waste another's time. If you are careless about keeping appointments or keeping them on time, we are stealing something precious. If we waste time on the job, we are taking money under false pretenses. How is that different from selling somebody something and then surreptitiously taking it back? In the Epistle of James, we read of God's wrath on people who withhold just wages from their employees. Christian employers too often let the prevailing standards of whatever society they are in determine their attitude toward just compensation rather than God's principles of equity. Likewise, Christians take advantage of the kindness.

Of their fellow believers when they expect.

A Christian plumber, for example, to fix leaks for free. We owe our government taxes not only because of services rendered and because the law requires it, but because God has said that we're to pay them. There are legal means of reducing one's taxable income, and Christians should make use of them as as good stewards of the funds God has entrusted to us. But when we claim deductions to which we are not entitled, we are stealing. If we claim a charitable deduction for what is really a tuition payment for our child's schooling, we steal. If we take our spouse along at company expense on a business trip and don't count its value, we steal even with the boss's approval. If we have a company car but fail to separate business from private use, we steal. If not from the company, then from the government. Photocopy abuse is widespread. Christians have been particularly guilty of stealing income due to publishers and artists by photocopying music and pirating lyrics. Organizations that solicit funds for one purpose, but use them in quite unrelated ways are engaged in a form of stealing. This affects more than sleazy fly by night operations. Probably many prominent denominations and seminaries have received legacies from evangelism or to advance a particular confessional stance. But instead of use the money to support modernistic views with all these possibilities, who can say he has never stolen? You want to know what stealing is? The Puritans understood that stealing is far more than walking into somebody's house and taking money out of his wallet.

I'm going to tell you what the.

Catechism tells us that the violation of the Eighth Commandment amounts to. And as I read these things, and it's quite long, I want you to think about whether you can leave this series on economic ethics and claim you're not a thief. What is the Eighth Commandment? The Eighth Commandment is Thou shalt not steal. What are the duties required in the Eighth Commandment? The duties required in the Eighth Commandment are truth, faithfulness, and justice in contracts and commerce between man and man, rendering.

To everyone.

His due restitution of goods unlawfully detained from the right owners thereof giving and lending freely according to our abilities and the necessities of others moderation of our judgments, wills, and affections concerning worldly goods a provident care and study to get, keep, use, and dispose those things which are necessary and convenient for the sustenance of our nature, and suitable to our condition a lawful calling and diligence in it frugality, avoiding unnecessary lawsuits, and suretyship and other like engagements and an endeavor by all just and lawful means, to procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate of others, as well as our own. What are the sins forbidden in the Eighth Commandment? The sins forbidden in the Eighth Commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are Theft, robbery, man stealing, receiving anything that is stolen, fraudulent dealing false weights and measures, removing landmarks, injustice and unfaithfulness in contracts between man and man, or in matters of trust, oppression, extortion, usury, bribery, vexatious lawsuits, unjust enclosures and depopulations, engrossing commodity to enhance the price, unlawful callings and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him, or of enriching ourselves. Covetousness, inordinate, prizing and affecting worldly goods, distrustful and distracting, cares and studies and getting, keeping and using them, envying at the prosperity of others. As likewise idleness, prodigality, wasteful gaming.

And.

All other ways whereby we do unduly prejudice our own outward estate and defrauding ourselves of the due use and comfort of that estate which God has given us. So look at your own record. What's your attitude toward those who are better off than you? Is it envy? Covetousness?

Look at.

Look at the attitude you have toward those who are worse off than you. Is it charity and patience and kindness? Look at your tithing record. Look at your work record. Do you put in a full day's labor? Do you do quality work for your employer? Do you respect copyright laws?

Have you ever made a copy of.

A piece of music that you had no right to? Are you totally honest in reporting your income? Do you ever fudge just a little bit on your deductions? Do you ever wish for or do you profit from the government's intervention in the market? Do you have a cold and calculating attitude toward taking advantage of others? I've even heard Christians say, this is incredible, that if somebody wants to sell something of value to you and they don't recognize the value, that you shouldn't say a word to them. You should take advantage of that. Christians have said that's what your obligation is. Do you daydream for quick riches? Oh, we could go on and on and on. But I need to say one more thing. All sin. All sin is theft, isn't it? It's not just theft in the realm of the eighth commandment, but every transgression is taking something which is not ours. It's taking the prerogatives of God. It's stealing the glory of God. It is wronging our neighbor in some way. All sin is a form of theft. And all sin, according to the Bible, creates debt with God.

A debt that will be paid eternally.

For the wages of sin is death. Christ, the greatest economist who ever lived, the most precious One in our eyes. For the Bible teaches us that Christ came to pay a ransom price for thieves like us so that our debts can be paid and we can be free. In the Lord's Prayer we say, forgive us our debts specifically because God looks in an economic way upon our sin, if you will, and Christ has come to pay that debt of sin.

4.

Brothers and sisters, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might become rich. The varieties of thievery are all about us. The answer to them in each and every case is to look at the way Christ impoverished himself so that you might truly become rich.