March 7th, 2010 “To Catch A Thief”

“You must not steal.”  Exodus 20:15

The cornerstones: of HCCSM!

Cornerstone #1 Is God’s Word, God’s Word?
Cornerstone #2 Jehovah-Yahweh?
Cornerstone #3 Idolatry?
Cornerstone #4 Proper Name Usage!
Cornerstone #5 Proper Rest!
Cornerstone #6 Honoring Authority!
Cornerstone #7 Don’t Kill!
Cornerstone #8 Don’t Commit Adultery!
Cornerstone #9 Don’t Steal!

A young man arrested for stealing a car, had the year's most novel excuse.  He'd found the automobile in front of a cemetery, he explained, and thought the owner was dead.

Augustine said:  “Before God can deliver us from ourselves we must undeceive ourselves.”

• It’s like whistling past the cemetery, and saying it’s not my problem, it’s not going to happen to me! Wrong!
• Why Do You Lock Your Doors at Night?
• Read the newspaper:  Every day—every single day of the year—brings us new stories about car theft, white-collar theft, armed robbery, muggings, shoplifting, insurance fraud, income tax evasion, breaking and entering, embezzlement, employee theft, pyramid get-rich-quick schemes, extortion, blackmail, bribery, and all the rest of the sophisticated means we use to rip each other off.
• America has forgotten the Eighth Commandment!
• —That’s why we will install a new security system here at the new church location!
• Of our Ten Rules for the Road of Life---given to us by God---this rule seems to be the most straight forward!

The Eight Commandment---“Thou shalt not steal!”

The Lesson:
1st Two Kinds of Thievery! There are many! Only One Life (Poem)
Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call, I know I’ll say ‘twas worth it all”;
Only one life,’ twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
#1The Time Thief! Time is the most precious commodity in the world.

• It is the one truly non-renewable resource. Once time is gone it can never be reclaimed, recycled or repeated.

Pastor Phil says: “Time flies—whether we use it wisely or whether we waste it. Time waits for no one, stops for no one, and slows down for no one. It passes … and then “like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away.” When enough time has passed, we too will be gone. “
Who are the time thieves? They are the ones who:
Those Showing up late for an appointment
Those Coming late for work
Those Leaving early for lunch
Those Taking extra-long breaks
Those Leaving early for home
Those Watch the internet instead of working—TIME THIEVES!
Quote: “America has become a nation of time thieves. We routinely promise to be somewhere at a certain time … knowing that we will be late. Often we even plan to be late. Does it matter to us that others have arranged their schedules to fit our promises?”

• We are late for appointments
• late for meetings
• late for church services
• late to keep our promises

#2 The God-Robbing Thief!

Malachi 3:8-10 “Will a man rob God? Yet you robbed me. But you ask, ’How do we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in my house. ’Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ’and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much that you will not have room enough for it.’”

The God-robber is the man who refuses to give to God that which belongs to God!

He is the man who knows God personally, realizes that his blessings come from God … and still refuses to give to God.

When we refuse to obey God’s Word, we are “under a curse!”  “But you ask, ’How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me”

I don’t want to be under a curse! How about you?

Matthew 6:20-21 “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

1.         People try to rationalize not paying their Tithes---10%---to the Lord!

• “I don’t have enough money to go around!”
• “I have to pay my bills first!”
• “God can wait!”
• “I don’t agree with the way the church is spending the money!”

                       
2.         THE TITHE IS NOT YOURS IN THE FIRST PLACE---IT BELONGS TO THE LORD!
THE CHURCH OF ALL TITHERS---Dr. Hugh McKean of Chiengmai, Thailand, tells of a church of 400 members where every member tithes.  They receive a weekly wage of 40 stangs [less than twenty cents] and their rice.  Of this meager existence, each gives a tenth every week.  Because of this, they have done more for Christ in Thailand than any other church.  They pay their own preacher and have sent two missionary families to spread the gospel in a community cut off from the outside world.  They are intensely interested in all forms of Christian work, especially work for unfortunates of every kind; and their gifts for this kind of work are large.  They have not only accepted Christ, but, having found Him good, they are making Him known to others.  Oh, by the way, this church of all tithers,  is also a church of all lepers -- every person has leprosy.  Submitted by Gene Stinson of Granger, Indiana

C.           Question:   When is a Thief no longer a Their?   Pastor Phil says:  The thief stops being a thief when he steals no more. 
Luke 19:8 “Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."

The Lesson:
2nd The High Cost Of Stealing!
Thievery Cost each of us money!

• Last year:  Long’s Drugs---lost $40 million dollars in shrinkage---product that was stolen by employees!  Who do you think pays for this?
• $105 billion each year in medical bills and lost earnings;
• $400 billion to operate corrections facilities
• $130 billion for crime prevention and loss of potential productivity of criminals and inmates
• $1 trillion when including the cost of the criminal justice systems, as well as private individuals and companies taking security measures
• $4,118 is the annual cost of crime to each U.S. citizen
• $603 billion lost to the economy from fraud and unpaid taxes
• $500 million of money or valuables taken in robberies
• $15 billion in property stolen
• $127 billion from rape offenses; assault $93 billion, murder $61 billion, and child abuse $56 billion
• $45 billion paid by insurance programs to crime victims
• $8 billion paid to victims by U.S. government annually for restorative and emergency services

THE TRUETH IS WE ARE PAYING FOR THE HIGH COST OF STEALING! Every time you pay insurance---you pay!

The Lesson:
3rd        The Cure?
Ephesians 4:38  “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need..”
John 10:7-10 “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Illustration: Zig Ziglar, a well-known motivational speaker tells the following story about a thief: “I'd like to introduce you to a foolish thief that I know.  His name is Emanuel Nenger.  The year is 1887.  The scene is a small neighborhood grocery store.  A middle-aged gentleman is in the store buying some turnip greens.  He gives the clerk a $20 bill and she starts to put the $20 bill in the cash drawer to give him his change.  Then the clerk looks down at her fingers and she notices some of the ink from the $20 bill is coming off on her fingers which are wet because she's been wrapping those turnip greens.  And she looked up at Mr.  Nenger.  Here's a man she's known for years.  She looks down at the $20 bill.  She's shocked.  She wonders to herself, "Is this man giving me a counterfeit $20 bill?"  And then she discounts it almost immediately because Emanuel Nenger is an old and trusted friend.  So she says, "No, he wouldn't do that."  So she gives him his change and he goes on his way.  But $20 is an awful lot of money in 1887 and so she decides to contact the police.  They get a search warrant; they look through Emanuel Nenger's home.  Up in his attic they find the facilities for reproducing $20 bills.  The facilities are rather simple.  It's an artist's easel and the paint brushes and the paints because Emanuel Nenger is laboriously, stroke by stroke, hand-painting those $20 bills.  You see, he was in fact, a master artist.  And while they were up there they found three portraits that Emanuel Nenger had painted.  They sold those portraits at public auction for a little over $16,000.  That's over $5,000 per portrait.  But here's the irony -- it took him almost the same length of time to paint a $20 bill that it took him to paint a $5,000 portrait.  Yes, Emanuel Nenger was quite a thief, wasn't he? He was a thief who was stealing from himself.  Anytime we try to take the short-cuts; anytime we try to break the law, we end up stealing from ourselves. 

The Thief on the cross said to Jesus: Luke 23:32 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

IN OUR PLACE:  They tell the story about a Great Russian tribal leader in the early days who had two laws.  The first was that all the tribe was to love their parents and the second was they were not to steal.  This man's leadership and these laws made his tribe the greatest in all of Russia.  Now one day they discovered that someone was stealing.  This angered the leader greatly and he brought all the people together.  He said, "Let the thief come forward and receive 10 lashes for his crime."  No one came and he upped the ante to 20 lashes.  Then 30, then 40 lashes.  He stopped there for he knew that it would take a strong man to survive 40 lashes with the whip.  The crowd dispersed and the leader sent his men to find the thief.  Within a week they brought the thief to him and the leader gasped, for the thief was his own mother.  The guards were wagering among themselves as to what this great and wise leader would do.  Would he keep his word, obey his second law and whip his mother? Or would he obey the first law, love his mother and let her go free, thus disgracing himself and the laws he sought to enforce? If the crime went unpunished, surely everyone would steal.  The leader gathered the tribe together.  They brought his mother forward and bared her frail back.  "Ah, ha," thought the people, "he's going to whip her."  Then, just before the whip master brought the whip to bear, the leader strode over to his mother, tearing his shirt off as he went and draped himself over her frail body, taking the 40 lashes himself.  That's exactly what Jesus did for us.  Jesus took our punishment on the cross.  We should have rightly died for our sins, but Jesus took our place. 

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8