The Wounds of Stealing

By His Wounds  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  17:00
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This morning we are looking at the eighth commandment, it is found in Exodus 20:15:
Exodus 20:15 ESV
“You shall not steal.
Under the New Covenant, it is elevated to a higher standard as we will see in our Epistle and Gospel readings. From the pen of Paul...
Ephesians 4:28 ESV
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.
From the mouth of Jesus...
Matthew 6:19–27 ESV
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
As we have seen throughout this series, the Ten Commandments have both positive and negative requirements, not only is outright theft prohibited, but any form fraud. On the positive side we are to labor for our neighbor’s financial and physical well-being, and most importantly we are to place our trust in God, rather than in wealth.
Earlier in this series, I said that the greatest problem the world is facing today is not a virus, but vice. The commandment not to steal is a good example of this. To illustrate this, let me step away from our current crisis and look at the fiscal meltdown of 2008. We are far enough away from it that we can look at it more objectively. The problem began with poorly written laws designed to help low income Americans purchase their first home. Whether or not these laws were intentionally written the
at way purposely, the members of the House and Senate Financial Committees too advantage of these laws to enrich themselves, rather than reforming those laws. Then there were the banking and real estate industries. Their misdeeds in the housing bubble are well known. Finally, there were the buyers themselves, 70% of them gave false information on their loan applications. What we had was the perfect storm and responsibility for this financial disaster could be found from top to bottom of American society. Simply put it was fraud on a massive scale. The consequences for this fraud were devastating, America was thrown into the longest lasting recession of her history!
Remember the warning I shared with you from the great Puritan theologian John Owen who wrote, “Sin is never satisfied, it always go to the next level.” Sin is like a virus. It starts with just one act, then spreads, grows, and intensifies. Our “small sins” have way of having great consequences.
I have been asked of the current coronavirus epidemic is a judgement from God. The short answer is yes, but not in the way you may think. All the evil in this world can be traced back to one sin, on one day—the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Since that day every individual as added to that avalanche of sin and misery and the suffering we see before us is the result. The wages of sin are indeed death, but in all this sin and misery we can find mercy if we look to Christ: By His Wounds We are Healed.
In Luke 23:1-2, we see Jesus accused of stealing.
Luke 23:1–2 ESV
Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”
In other parts of Scripture, such as Romans 13, we learn that we are obligated to pay taxes to those in authority. To withhold taxes is stealing. Jesus is accused of being a thief. It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified between two thieves. Jesus took upon himself all of our sins, including the sin of theft! He did this in order that we might be healed from our sin. In our Gospel lesson we heard Jesus tell us not to love money and not to be anxious, because God is a greater treasure than money. The cross is God’s guarantee to us that He loves us and will take care of us. The author of the book of Hebrews writes:
Hebrews 13:5 ESV
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Brothers and sisters, we have a security greater than money can buy. The wounds of Christ are a healing balm to the soul. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, many are filled with fears, including economic fears. Our economy may crumble, but the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord is a Rock that cannot be moved!
If you have not done so, I urge you today to make the Lord Jesus Christ your Rock. Let us pray.
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