Do not Steal Acts 5.1-10 Sun 10.30 June 2nd
2003
When I was working in
Hanley in Stoke on
The cashier would fiddle
around with the money getting the cash I had requested but no way could I count
it. Then she would quickly count it out for me. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty,
ninety, one hundred, etc. They do it so quick sometimes don’t they, that you
don’t know if it was a ten, twenty or what note just placed! I don’t like to
ask, “If they will count it out again”, slower.
One lunch time; I got back
to work; opened the passbook; counted the money; and found I had ten pounds too
much. I checked the entry in the book. Definitely £10 too much. I moaned to my
colleagues who mainly thought I should be pleased.
My mother, before the war,
used to be a cashier at a shop. If the
money didn’t match what should have been in the till, she said, she would be in
trouble and have to make it up. I envisioned this building society cashier
having to stay behind to try and find the £10 and then having to “make it up”.
I couldn’t do anything about it that day. I had got to restart work. They would
be closed when I finished. I would have to go back tomorrow lunchtime.
The next day I went to the
cashier and explained what had happened. She was not happy. “You shouldn’t have
brought it back”, she said. “I thought you would have had to spend time looking
for it and make it up yourself”, I said. “No. This is more trouble”, she said.
Back at the office again my
non Christian male colleagues thought “it served me right”. I wished I hadn’t
checked the cash – whether it was, too much or too little.
What do you think I should
have done – in hindsight? What influence would that action have, on those who knew of the mistake?
I received a letter the other day, from a Christian that had been franked in the
firms franking machine. May be something considered an accepted perk by all at
the firm?! Everyone does it? The boss
uses it. But is this a good witness. I noticed, what would a non Christian receiving
such mail think. What would this person’s colleague think if they saw her
sticking her own stamps on her post?
J. John’s Book on the Ten
Commandments says that
in early 1999 a newspaper
reported that 75% of Britons stole from their workplace.
Generally people take or
use things that aren’t theirs and the say they borrowed it, acquired it, helped
themselves. But rarely say I stole it. It may have fallen off the back of a
lorry, or be surplus to requirements.
Paul said in Acts 24.16 I always try to maintain a clear conscience
before God and everyone else.
I am sure most people here
do not consider themselves thieves. In fact, you may believe you have never
stolen anything. Nothing of any consequence anyway.
Here is a list of a few ways I know people do steal.
Not, stealing from work can of course be difficult. Your expense claims may
be lower than anyone else in the same position. Your boss may even tell you to
claim more. Colleagues may try to get you to conform. Being laughed at, as I
was for taking the ten pounds back is bad enough, but when it may effect their pockets people can be more aggressive.
Another statistic in J.
John’s book said that 70% of Christians will compromise their belief, it they
believe it will help to get them a promotion in their job. Do you think that is
accurate?
On the other hand, may be
you are content with your job. You consider work, even the actual working
hours, time to make friends with your colleagues and try to speak to them about
Jesus. But many jobs take complete concentration. You can not talk about a non job related issue, and get on with your
job. If you do you would be stealing
company time. Non Christian colleagues may see your chatter as hypocritical. Stealing
company time.
We may
have started dishonest habits, before we became Christians, which, until now,
we just haven’t considered being wrong. “Our hearts have been hardened” the Bible says.
Have you
ever tried to learn how to play the guitar? I had an attempt years ago. I had
to cut my finger nails short on my left hand, so my finger ends could to touch
the strings. All of a sudden I seemed to be bashing the ends of my fingers more
often, and that was before I picked up the guitar. My finger ends you see were
pink and tender having being protected by my nails.
After my first attempt at
pressing hard on the strings to play chords my fingers were bright red and
sore. Another attempt and I had blisters. The blisters healed and eventually I
had hard little pads formed on the ends of my fingers and the strings no longer
hurt when I held them down. The ends of my fingers had hardened. It was then that I realised I had been strumming
completely wrong and gave up! The little hard pads on my fingers eventually
disappeared again.
The same hardening happens
with our consciences. We do something wrong and feel guilty. The next time we
do it, we don’t feel as guilty and so on. Our conscience gets hardened. We have hardened our
consciences or hearts.
God, may try to touch us
through our conscience but it is so hardened, we just don’t feel it. We sing
“Soften my heart Lord, soften my heart. From all indifference set me apart”. This is a prayer we need to say
regularly.
Jesus told us we would
receive power to be witnesses. Acts
1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will
be my witnesses in
We won’t make good
witnesses if we don’t cooperate with God in the softening our hearts.
And when we do realise we
have faults, that we didn’t realise we had, we must not be depressed. It means we now have more faith, and God is
showing us more clearly where we aren’t obeying His law. Accept His help in your life.
May be you used to use,
the property of where you worked, as if they were your own. Perhaps you are
more honest now with your finances, or you have corrected some other area of
your life where you realise you weren’t being totally honest. Pat yourself on
the back for working with God, and remember to thank Him for both showing you
an area in which you needed to change, and for giving you the love and strength
to change.
Remember, God will show you
other areas you need to grow in. That is if you are allowing him to, “Soften your
heart”.
Let us look at a way we
can steal from God. The way Ananias and Sapphira did in the Bible reading.
Looking at the passage,
there seems reason to believe that this couple did tithe to God the full amount expected of them. Additionally,
they must have volunteered to sell a property and give the full amount to their
Christian community.
But Acts 5.2 says - With
his wife's full knowledge he kept back
part of the money for himself, and brought the rest and put it at the apostles'
feet.
Peter says, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so
filled your heart that you have lied to
the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received
for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was
sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a
thing? You have not lied to men but to God."
This couple are accused of
keeping back, or embezzling, as the
word can mean, an extra offering. They didn’t owe the money and were not
obliged to offer anything. They made a personal promise of offering the total
proceeds from their sale. They died for deceiving God and people. They kept back or embezzled money they had
promised to God. They lied by saying it was the full amount. They showed a lack
of integrity.
It was not the amount but
the fact they tried to appear more generous than they were. They were liars and
hypocrites. They wanted the prestige and credit for sacrificial generosity
without the inconvenience of it. Their main motive was to bolster their ego, to
gain a reputation.
The only regret they must
have had was that they were found out. This was a premeditated deception.
Some say, “I don’t go to
church because it is full of hypocrites”. Were Ananias and Sappira the first.
God obviously took this hypocrisy, keeping what they had promised to others and himself very seriously. Do we ever keep back, steal, what isn’t ours?
People
do “keep back” and “reclaim”
tax.
Romans 13.7 Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay
your taxes and import duties, and give respect and honour to all to whom it
is due.
About twelve years ago the Inland Revenue audited Lichfield Diocese’s income tax
reclaim for tax paid under “Deeds of Covenant”. Many of the churches in the
Diocese had not kept accurate records and an adequate audit trail of what had
been given. A few churches were rumoured to have claimed back more than was
possible on their income.
The way these tax
covenants worked was a covenanter promised to pay, and at the end of the year
signed to say they had paid a stated amount. May be some had given less than
they signed for unknowingly.
Maybe others didn’t care.
May be some thought of themselves as Robin Hood, stealing from the rich Tax Man
to give to the poor church.
A total of £200,000 was
paid back to the Inland Revenue. To the outside world this sounds like it could
be a fraud. “These Christians, they are
hypocrites.”
Incidentally, the covenant
system is no longer under operation. The government still wants to encourage
people to give to charities by either Payroll Giving whereby your giving goes
to a sort of charity bank account before tax is deducted, and before you are
paid. I can tell you more about that.
The other method is Gift Aid
where tax payers can sign to give to any charity. They then give by standing
order, cheque or marked envelope and the government will add 28% to this gift.
Ask Christine or Irene about Gift Aid.
There is nothing to stop
you using both methods of tax free giving.
Giving honestly to
charities by the old covenant system or by gift aid is being “Wise with money”
and we are encouraged in being wise in the Bible.
But sometimes
our “Being wise with money” is
deception, stealing under a different name.
Take car insurance for
teenagers. They have a car for their own use, some parents rarely if ever
drive it and then the insurance forms are filled in saying it is the parents
car, the parent is the main driver.
The teenager is added for
domestic and pleasure purposes only. They aren’t insured for travelling to and
from their part time jobs, because that would mean having to have a policy of
their own.
Well, car insurance is too
high anyway we say. I am not paying £3000 a year for my child’s own policy.
Christians even brag to
non Christians about how cheap they got a policy.
Most people get away with
it, even if they have an accident coming home from work. But isn’t this
stealing from the insurance companies and increasing
the insurance for everyone else? If you disagree, try telling the truth
to an insurance company and see what they say.
A company I used to work for had a subsidiary that was a waste oil collection
service. This company had a fleet of oil tankers that went around garages
offering to pump out the waste oil from garage tanks. The drivers offered a
payment of say 20p a litre. The garages may have then asked for say 40p as this
was good waste oil or may have accepted the payment. Glad to have it removed.
Modern bartering!
This oil was then cleaned
up and used as fuel oil.
Apparently, there is
naturally water in waste oil from cars. But often the amount of water in this
waste oil, when it was re-refined was much higher than naturally expected. The
reason for this I was told was that water was deliberately added by people
trying to get more for their “waste oil”. Either the garage or the middle man.
Encouraged by their
bosses. The oil tanker drivers would try and convince the garage that there was
more water content in the oil than they believed there was and thus pay less.
But the drivers would also
sometimes add water and sell the extra litres produced to another company,
pocket this money, and then deliver the rest to their employers.
The more these men managed
to steal in this barter system, the cleverer and more respected they seemed to
be.
I have never liked the
barter system since. Either the customer is robbed or the seller doesn’t get
its real worth. This barter system operates in some third world countries,
where the producer agrees to a pittance from some large wholesale company. He
may have no one else to sell too. This company then sells the goods on at a
vast profit. Buying fair trade goods, where possible, is one way of making sure
we don’t contribute to theft from these poorer people.
How close to money are you?
Do you think it is of upper most importance? Consider this. -
What would please you most
to receive in the post tomorrow: A loving letter from a relative or a genuine tax
refund cheque from the Inland Revenue?
For Jesus said, “Where
your treasure is there your heart will be”. Are you to close to money?
Also think about this
proverb -
Proverbs 30.7-9 O God, I
beg two favours from you before I
die. First, help me never to tell a lie.
Second, give me neither poverty nor
riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, "Who is the LORD?" And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God's holy name.
Satan wants to ruin your
life. It starts with little lies, little compromises. Either you have integrity or you haven’t.
You must acknowledge your
sin to yourselves; repent to God; make restitution if possible; and then
receive forgiveness.
Know then, that yet another
barrier separating you from God has now being pulled down. Rejoice in this
knowledge and go on with God.
Ask him again to “Soften
your heart”, to show you other areas where you need to change.
But, rejoice knowing that
you are not perfect, but are forgiven, and so, able to say, “I’m OK and I’m on my way”.