“I Was Only Borrowing It!” (Part 2 of 2)

The Bible teaches that stealing is wrong. It not only harms others, it's a sin against God. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg outlines some of the less obvious ways we rob others. Then he looks to the New Testament to teach us how we can replace negative behavior with something positive.

We continue in Exodus 20 verse 15. Let me give you five other ways that are perhaps not so obvious in which we break the eighth commandment. Number one, we steal when we steal the reputation of others by the sin of slander. We steal when we steal another's reputation by slandering them.

To slander somebody essentially means to run them down, to backbite them, to speak in a derogatory fashion about them behind their backs and usually when they have no opportunity of responding to it. You steal another person's reputation, or I steal another person's reputation, and that is far more harmful than what we would ever do in stealing something out of their home. You steal the reputation of another person in business, and that may be far more harmful than ever having taken illicit funds out of their till, because our reputation is of such significance. And yet, in the context in which many of us move, whereby we would never take anything out of the plate—oh, no, when the offering plate comes back, no! Exodus 20, 15, Thou shalt not steal.

I couldn't do that. We're probably not going to go in the store and take stuff away, although some of us may live with that problem secretly. But many of us don't think very much about stealing the reputation of somebody else by stabbing them in the back when they're not present. We steal!

We steal! Sixteenth-century preacher addressing this issue speaks to a lady in his congregation who confessed to being a slanderer. He said, Do you frequently fall into this fault?

Yes, very often, she said. Your fault is great, but the mercy of God is still greater, he said. Go to the nearest market and purchase a chicken just killed and still covered with feathers. You will then walk a certain distance, plucking the bird as you go along. When you finish your work, return to me here. She did as she'd been instructed and returned anxious for an explanation.

O said the man, You've been very faithful to the first part of my instructions. Now what I want you to do is to retrace your steps and gather all the feathers up one by one. But, explained the woman, I cast them carelessly on every side.

The wind carried them in every direction. How can I ever recover them? Well, he replied, so it is with your words of slander. Like the feathers they have been scattered, call them back if you can. Done any stealing this week? Stolen anybody's reputation this week? So that you would get a business deal? So that you would look better in front of your schoolteacher?

So that she wouldn't go out on a date with him but might go out on a date with you? Secondly, and not so obviously, we steal from other people when, as a result of fornication, we take away their moral purity. You say, Well, isn't this last Sunday?

Well, in some ways it's last Sunday, it's this Sunday, it's every Sunday. I want to say to you—and you can at least say afterwards, when I'm long gone, you'll say, Well, I remember Old Begg, he used to tell us, Yeah, I told you. And in telling you, I tell myself. And in telling you, I haven't forgotten what it was like to be a teenager.

But I tell you again this morning. You cannot play fast and loose with the moral life of the girl you're dating or the fellow you're dating. You cannot steal from them that which can never, ever be repaid without being a manifest lawbreaker sinning your soul, disrupting life, and creating a pattern of heartache which will actually walk with you through your days even though you're forgiven. So to those of you who have the opportunity to make wise decisions, ask God to help you, not to go stealing in the realm of moral purity. Thirdly, we steal when we take work which was done by someone else and we make it appear as if it were our own. That's called plagiarism.

It's particularly true in the academic world, it's true to some degree in the business world, it's what many of the battles are fought over patents in the business and manufacturing world is about. Somebody says, I did it, they didn't do it, they stole it from somebody else, they wanted to make it look like their own, and endeavoring to do so, they exalt themselves. There are not a few people walking around with a horrible, guilty conscience, I'm sure, because they have PhD after their name, and if truth were told, they never did eighty percent of the work. They filched it all from materials dead and buried and long gone, they plagiarized it.

They're thieves. Fourthly, we steal from others when we cheat in the context of the classroom. When we follow someone else's work, we cheat because we steal their time, we steal their intellect, we steal their endeavor.

And again, we seek to exalt ourselves on the basis of the harm and disregard and devaluation which we demonstrate towards them. It's not like cheating at golf, and cheating at golf is different. I don't mean in competition, I mean when you're by yourself. You cheat at golf when you're by yourself? Did you give yourself putts that you missed? And then did you mark the card?

And did you take it home and leave it on the vanity so your wife can see it? We'll have a sermon on that one day, but not this morning. Fifthly, we steal by failing to give God what we owe him. Come to Malachi chapter 3 for just a moment. It's the last book of the Old Testament.

Malachi chapter 3 and verse 8. Will a man rob God? Well, how could we rob God? He goes on to say, the way in which you rob me is, basically, you're telling me one thing and you're doing another.

You're telling me you're committed to me, and yet there's no apparent commitment on your part. The issue is that they were holding back what they may have given away to God. They weren't prepared to trust God to provide for them to throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out the blessing that they couldn't contain.

Verse 10, they were depriving God of the opportunity to show himself strong in their respect as a nation. And while there is a theocratic, nationalistic element in this promise, yet the principle remains the same, that when God's people are prepared to trust God and not seek to steal from God, recognizing that everything comes from God, then the blessings which he will pour out upon his people are unimaginable. It has to do with money.

Surely it does. It has to do with time. It has to do with intellect, with our will, and with our talents. It has to do, if you like, with living out the hymn that we often sing, Take my life and let it be, Consecrated Lord to thee, Take my moments and my days, And let them flow in ceaseless praise. Every time I sing that and then steal it back, I break the eighth commandment. The third question—you did well getting through that—the third question is, well, what then is the positive side of this command? If this is all the negative side of the command, what is the positive side of the command?

Well, it's very clear. If the essence of theft is getting, then the essence of obedient Christian living is giving. Ephesians chapter 4—you may want to turn to it—Ephesians 4 and verse 28, He who has been stealing must steal no longer. There's not a full stop there.

There's a comma. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, instead, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need. So the thief is not somebody who, in coming to Christ, simply stops being a thief. But the thief is somebody whose hands have been used for taking, is to have his hands transformed by the power of God for giving.

It's a wonderful transformation. Where dishonesty once marked his life, now honesty is to characterize his work. Where it was that he would only take from people, now he is to give to people, 1 Corinthians 10, 24. We should do everything in our powers to prosper others. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

Take that for a principle. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. Imagine everybody going around seeking the good of others, rather than our own good.

It would radically transform things. Imagine all of your children thinking about the good of their siblings rather than the good of themselves. Imagine our families being run on that principle. Imagine our church operating on that principle.

It is a transforming principle. It is the flip side of the eighth commandment. Also, we should strive after honesty in little things, because it is in little things that we set the pattern for larger things. chapter 16, verse 10, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with very much, and whoever is dishonest with little will also be dishonest with much.

It's a fundamental principle. If you can't be trusted with pencils, if you can't be trusted with an expense account that runs to a hundred dollars a month, your employer is a crackpot if he gives you an expense account that runs to two thousand dollars a month. If you can't be trusted with it here, you can't be trusted with it there. Why?

The problem is inside. You see, a gambler will gamble on anything. Two raindrops running down the window, he goes, I bet you the one on the left reaches the bottom first. I bet you don't know what kind of coin I've got in my pocket. It's just endemic in the guy.

He just can't think without thinking gambling. And when we think in terms of stealing, a cheat and a thief, they just steal all the time. It's sin. Finally, is there a good example of the transformation of a thief given us in the Bible? Yes, we read it, and I'd like you to turn back there, because we're going to finish up in Luke chapter 19. Is there a good example of a thief being transformed in the Bible?

Luke chapter 19. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. The two things were synonymous. You're a chief tax collector, you're wealthy. You're wealthy, there's a fair chance you're a chief tax collector. The reason for this was, without going into all the details, that they had the responsibility for customs and for excise, for levying taxes and for levying tolls, and they had a measure of freedom because they worked for a guy who owned a ton of stuff—I mean, so much stuff that he hadn't seen a bank statement in a hundred years that he could pay any attention to because it was so astronomically large. Therefore, he trusted a number of these chief tax collectors to oversee areas of his territory. He told the chief tax collectors, look, out of this, what I need a month is x. I don't care what happens before that or after that as long as I get x.

Chief tax collector said, beautiful. Because now I know that he needs x. I will go out and get x plus y. Give him his x, give me my y, and we'll be in the gravy.

That's exactly what happened. So as he went and exercised these tolls and exercised the taxes and everything, the people had a sneaking suspicion that little Zacchaeus was creaming some off the top, but they couldn't put their hand on it, because they couldn't say exactly what the man over here wanted on a monthly basis. But they knew that he was a cheat, they knew he was a thief, they knew he was at the fiddling. So he was wealthy, and they didn't like him.

He had prominence, and yet people resented him. He's a little man as well, a short man. I don't know if you're allowed to say that anymore today. It says something, there's probably a clever phrase for that.

What is it? Vertically challenged. Yeah, vertically challenged. That's it.

Yes. Zacchaeus was a vertically challenged individual. And on account of this peculiar vertical challenge, he did not figure that he would see Jesus when he came to town. So seeking to respond to this unique challenge, he climbs up a tree. Sycamore tree branches tend to hang down low, which is how somebody who is that small would have—because, you know, I'm saying, hey, how come he got up the tree in the first place? Did he use a ladder or something?

No, the branches hung down, he got on, got up. He's hoping to see who Jesus was, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot—what spot?

These spots! The spot that Jesus planned to reach. It was the spot under Zacchaeus' tree.

Zacchaeus is up the tree, and he's going, This is unbelievable. Of all the spots at which he may have stopped, he stops at my spot. Well, it wasn't his spot. It was Jesus' spot. But he must have said to himself, What an amazing view of the top of Jesus' head. I mean, I'll be able to tell my kids, and then he's suddenly looking down, and he's looking straight into the eyes of Christ.

And the door of opportunity is about to swing open. Jesus said to him, Zacchaeus, Come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. I must. Sometime you're interested, go through the New Testament and watch all the times that it says Jesus must do something.

I must stay at your house today. And you see Zacchaeus, when he looked into the eyes of Christ and heard that through his own ears and he heard Jesus say, I must stay at your house today, Zacchaeus must have said, You're right. We don't know, and we won't know till we get to heaven, just exactly what had been going on in his mind.

But we do know this. What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul? What advantage is there to be driving around in a wonderful car and have a stash of money and stocks and bonds and yet to be sick in the very heart of your life? To know that some of it is well maintained and well achieved and others of it has just been pilched and filched from all over the place. And when somebody like Christ, who is the Savior of sinners, looks into your eyes and says, I must stay at your house, the answer of your heart is going to be, You're right.

You must. Didn't matter what anybody else thought, all the Pharisees, all they could think was, Why would he ever go to this guy's house? After all, we organized the trip. We're the ones that put the procession together.

We led it in the front so that everybody would clear away. We have him coming. We figured he'll take us to Burger King after the service. And who does he go with? He goes with this squirt who has been stealing the whole place blind. The whole of Jericho knows you say Zacchaeus, you say thief.

Why would he go with him? The answer's in the 10th verse. Because the Son of Man came seeking to save that which is lost. And when he went into Zacchaeus' house, what do you think he did? I think he went through the Ten Commandments with Zacchaeus. I think he went through the law of God with Zacchaeus. He said, Zacchaeus, how are you doing? Zacchaeus says, I don't know. He said, Well, why don't we just run it up against the standard?

Why don't we just lay out the plan of the Father and see how we're doing? How are you doing with love and me, with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, all your strength? Quite good. Quite good on that one. Yeah.

And how are you doing here? Any idols in here? No. No, nothing.

Nothing, Lord. No, no idols. No.

No. And how are you doing? Is your wife here? Oh, yeah, it's cool.

My wife and I are great. Oh, what a girl. Lovely.

Lovely. Yeah. I mean, I bought her a watch yesterday. You should see her watch. Oh, it's unbelievable.

Yeah. Hey, how about stealing Zacchaeus? Jesus, I'm not going to have you come home to my house if you're going to start putting your finger on stuff like this. Then he walks out the door. Presumably all the people are hanging around, see what happens. I wonder what happens to Zacchaeus. Jesus goes in the house, and he comes back out. He comes back out, and he informs the people, hey, I'm a new guy. The law required that he doubled it, or he gave a fifth back. He comes out, and he says, I'm going to go four times back, everything I took, and I'm going to take half of my total resources, and I'm going to give them to the poor.

Now, there's probably somebody out there saying, oh, I get it now. The way you become a Christian is you pay back four times everything you ever stole from anybody, and you reduce your net worth by fifty percent. And as a result of that, you get a credit, which you keep with you, and then you go to the gates of heaven, you go, hey, I did that deal, the Zacchaeus deal, four times, plus the fifty percent of my net worth, therefore, on the basis of this—excuse me, no, you got it completely, absolutely, totally, foundationally wrong. Jesus would have told Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, if you were to work for the rest of your life and give money to everybody that walked the streets of Jericho, if you were never to steal again, if you were to become Mr. Nice Guy, if you were to labor with your hands, if you were to be zealous with your mind, you could never, Zacchaeus, repay the debt that you owe to Almighty God for breaking his law. Zacchaeus, you're a dead man. And then he would have told them, but Zacchaeus, if you would acknowledge who you are and what you are and look to me, Zacchaeus, then you will become a new man. And as a result of becoming a new man from the inside, you will live a new life on the outside. And then he announces to the crowd, today salvation has come to this house.

Has Jesus ever stood outside your door and made such an announcement? Why not? Don't tell me it's because you don't need salvation.

So why not? And why not allow today to be today? None of us can ever repay the debt we owe, and that's why Jesus came. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg, and Alistair returns in just a minute to close with prayer, so please keep listening. If you've not yet requested your copy of Alistair's brand new devotional, make sure you do so. The devotional is titled Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions. Alistair's clear, faithful, daily commentary will encourage you to live for Christ in every area of your life. Most importantly, it'll help you start each day with God's Word. So plan now to make 2022 a year of intentional time with God in His Word. Request your copy of Alistair's devotional when you donate to support the teaching you hear on this program.

Tap the book image in the app or call us at 888-588-7884. Now here's Alistair with a closing prayer. Gracious God, we thank you for your Word.

It's such a wonderful thing. It shines out into the darkness of our days with such clarity and purity. It pierces to the very quick of our being and shows us our need of you and then brings this wonderful news that upon a life we didn't live, upon a death we didn't die, upon another's life and death we may stake our whole eternity, reminding us that not the labor of our hands could fulfill your law's demands.

Could our tears forever flow? Could our zeal no respite know? All for our sins could not atone.

Only Jesus alone can save and change. Some of us this morning are painfully aware of the theft in which we've been involved. And we want to recognize it. We want to repent of it.

We want as we're enabled to make restitution for it. So we pray for your grace that we might be granted faith, that we might cast ourselves upon your mercy, that you may announce for some of us today salvation has come to this house. Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forevermore, amen. I'm Bob Lapine. The Ninth Commandment calls for honesty. So why does lying seem to come so naturally? Tomorrow Alistair gets to the source of the problem. I hope you can join us then. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.