“Into the Wilderness”
A Sermon Series in the Book of Exodus
“The Ten Commandments, Part 3”
Exodus 20:15-17
Introduction
The First Commandment; The Exclusivity of God (v. 1-3) If/Then not And
The Second Commandment: No Other Gods (v. 4-6) No idols
The Third Commandment; Honor the Lord’s Name (v. 7)
The Fourth Commandment; Keep the Sabbath (v. 8-11)
The Fifth Commandment; Honor Your Father and Mother (v. 12)
The Sixth Commandment; Do Not Murder (v. 13)
The Seventh Commandment; Do Not Commit Adultery (v. 14)
Prayer
The Eighth Commandment; Do Not Steal (v. 15)
15 “You shall not steal.”
Norman Rockwell painting, the butcher and the lady
“The Hebrew word for stealing (ganaf) literally means to carry something away, as if by stealth, to appropriate someone else’s property unlawfully.”[1] God’s law is comprehensive, it covers all ways that humanity can steal from someone else. There are many ways people have come up with ways to steal something from someone else: “burglary (breaking into a home or building to commit theft); robbery (taking property directly from another person using violence or intimidation); larceny (taking something with out permission and not returning it); hijacking (using force to take goods in transit or seizing control of a bus, trucks, plane, etc.); shoplifting (taking items from a store during business hours without paying for them); pickpocketing and purse snatching. It also covers embezzlement (the fraudulent taking of money or other goods entrusted to one’s care), extortion (getting money from someone by means of threats or misuses of authority), and racketeering (obtaining money by any illegal means).”[2]
People steal from their government (cheating on taxes), and governments steal from its’ citizenry (using taxes in wasteful ways). Employers steal from employees, and employees steal from their companies. This is just a partial list of ways mankind has thought to take something that does not belong to him.
In ancient times it may be moving a property stone that marks someone’s property, or using weights that were not weighted properly in the sale of goods. Stealing is a sin against God because in taking something that does not belong to you, you show your lack of belief that God will take care of you or give you what you need. God also has provided something to someone else, and you have violated God’s provision to them.
In the eight commandment God has established a person’s right to personal property. We do not have the right to take what God has given to someone else. But there is also the understanding of stewardship. God has given us resources, but we receive those resources to bring glory to God.
When the Israelites left Egypt they plundered the Egyptians as they were leaving, Exodus 12:35-36, “The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.” Now that God had given them silver, gold, and clothing they then were asked to give it to build the tabernacle. Exodus 35:21 “And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the LORD’s contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments.” They gave as they desired, willingly, as their hearts were stirred.
You can steal from other people, and you can also steal from God. In Malachi God’s people were not following the law, specifically in the types of animals the were bringing to sacrifice, and in their giving toward the work of God, Malachi 3:8-9 “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.” God gives us everything we have, and then we are to use those resources to bring glory to Him. So the eight commandment is not just about stealing, but it is also about stewardship. Giving God a portion back to Him, keeps money from having a grip on our hearts.
Paul gives an answer to the person tempted to steal, Ephesians 4:28 “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.” Work hard, labor, slowly build wealth by being a wise steward and eventually you will give toward those that have a need.
So there are three views toward stewardship; 1) “What is yours should be mine, so I will take it.” This is the thief. 2) “What is mine, is mine; so I will keep it.” This is the selfish person. 3) “What is mine, is Gods; so I will share it.” This is the godly attitude.
W. Tozer once said, “Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.” Jesus said it this way, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
As God’s Steward, Use the Resources in Your Possession to Bring Him Glory.
The Ninth Commandment; Do Not Bear False Witness (v. 16)
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”[3]
Deuteronomy 17:6 says, “On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.” So in an ancient court, two witnesses could come forward and give the same claim of wrongdoing, and the person could be killed on the spot.
In 1 Kings 21:11-13, the king wants a piece of property that was next to the king’s residence. He asks for it, the owner, Naboth, refuses to sell it so the king pouts, and his wife Jezebel develops a scheme to get it. She writes letters to the towns elders and put a plan in motion. “As it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, 12 they proclaimed a fast and set Naboth (the property owner) at the head of the people. 13 And the two worthless men came in and sat opposite him. And the worthless men brought a (false) charge against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones.” The king then got the property he wanted.
“We often think of the ninth commandment as “do not lie,” and that is the gist of it, but it’s specifically put in the context of the courtroom. Witnesses were everything in the ancient world.”[4] There were no audio recordings, no DNA traces, nor fingerprints to supplement an eye witness. So, the intention of the ninth commandment is that it is wrong to gain by deception from someone else’s loss. Through deception you are causing someone to be viewed in such a way that is not truthful (including gossip, slander, exaggeration, slanting events toward your favor, etc.)
Emitt Till[5]
The ability to speak is a gift[6], “God has given us the capacity to speak so that we can use words to praise him and to bless others. However, our speech is corrupted by our sin, so it has the power to do great damage.”[7] This is why sins such as gossip and slander are so wicked, because a person who does these things is trying to tear down a person’s reputation. These sins try to steal the treasure of a good name. Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” It is hard work to build a reputation, and it is evil to seek to destroy something you don’t own. “Trueblood translates the command, ‘Thou shalt be meticulously honest in dealing with the reputation of others.’”[8] Impartial justice and good reputation are equally endangered by the sin of false witness. The command calls for both impartial justice and the maintenance of reputation.
In 1949 George Orwell of Animal Farm and 1984 fame is claimed to have said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” We live in a day when certain truths, that was once said, “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” are no longer accepted as being true. The truth is no longer the truth. We have to overlook the obvious and blaring truth and present pronouns of what simply is not true. A person is expected to accept and support a non-truth or fear being cancelled, lose their job, etc. As Christians we are commanded by our God to speak the truth, not your truth, or my truth – but the truth as defined by God.
The Tenth Commandment ; Do Not Covet (v. 17)
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Coveting is to want for ourselves something that belongs to someone else. It’s more than thinking, “I would like to have a nice house,” or “I’d like to have a better job.” Coveting is longing to make someone else’s stuff your stuff.
“One way of looking at things is to see the tenth commandment as the internalization of the eighth commandment (stealing). Just as adultery of the heart is lust, and murder of the heart is hatred, so theft is the heart of covetousness. When Achan was found to have stolen and hidden things from a battle where he was told not to take anything, Joshua 7:21 he says, “when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels,3 then I coveted them and took them.” Every outward act of sin begins in the heart.
“This is how sinful deeds start – with sinful desire, First we see something we want. Then we start thinking about how much we want it, and why. Soon it starts to dominate our thoughts, until finally it becomes an obsession.”[9]
Coveting is desiring what others have, which leads to other sin. James says, 4:2-3 “You desire and do not have, so you murder. (Cain wanted God’s acceptance, which Abel had) You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! (Their passion should be directed toward God but instead their passions are for the things of this world) Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Coveting begins where ever your heart is focused. It is the last of the commandments because it’s a summation of all the ones that came before. There is something that makes you unhappy, something you want, but don’t have – and God should have given it to you, but He is keeping it from you. You know better than God what you need in your life to make you happy. Coveting eventually leads to one of the other commandments (adultery, lying, stealing, etc.) These are feelings you put before God and His plan for your life.
There is something different about the tenth commandment in that it starts in the heart and works its way out, all the others condemn outward expressions (murder, adultery, working on the Sabbath, making and bowing down to idols). This command is about what we want to do. This commandment shows us that God is concerned not just with our actions (what happens on the outside), but also with the direction of our heart (our desires on the inside).
God wants our love for Him to begin inside (in our heart) and make its way outside in obedient action. Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”[10]
Just like fighting off the temptation to steal is hard labor, the way to fight off the temptation of covetousness is contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6-10 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
Be content with what you have. What are you chasing after right now? If you were asked, “if you could have anything, and that would make you happy, what would it be?” If your answer is “if only I had,” and you says anything other than the first commandment (God alone), then you are a coveting idolater.
Have you ever had a new car, or a new-to-you car? How long did it take before it became just a car, and as you drive through traffic began to think ,”man I sure would like to have that car, instead this old thing.” This is how it is with anything of this earth, Ecclesiastes 5:10 “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” How much money do you need to be happy? Just a little bit more.
The sin that Adam and Eve committed on the garden was covetousness, Genesis 3:6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate,” God did not want them to have the knowledge that the tree provided, but they wanted it anyway. God provides what we need, are you content with that provision? “Contentment means wanting what God wants for us rather than what we want for us.”[11]
There is also another way to think about contentment. Michael Thornton once said, “It is not poverty or wealth that leads us to contentment and trust in the Lord, but the confidence that if God provided so richly for our salvation by choosing, redeeming, calling, adopting, and justifying us, and by sending His Spirit to cause us to grow up into Christ’s likeness, then surely we can count on Him for the less essential matters of daily existence.”[12] God has shown in a priceless way that He wants something wonderful for you; You trust Him for the eternal, trust Him then for the daily little things. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.
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[1] Philip Graham Ryken, Preaching the Word, Exodus (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2015) 602.
[2] Ryken, 602.
[3] “In Numbers 12 Miriam became leprous after she spoke evil against Moses. Based on this text, the thought has emerged in Jewish tradition that the sins of the tongue defile persons, just as leprosy does in the Bible. Therefore, these sins were regarded as more serious than most other sins. They were sometimes mentioned together with the three mortal sins: idolatry, adultery, and murder.” Göran Larsson, Bound For Freedom, The Book of Exodus in Jewish and Christian Traditions (Peabody, Massachusetts; Hendrickson Publishing, 1999) 154.
[4] Kevin DeYoung, The 10 Commandments (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2018) 144.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till and also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivLSKE4wpRU
[6] Some other thoughts on the concept of “the power of words.” https://drewboswell.com/the-power-of-words/
[7] Ryken, 616.
[8] Elton Trueblood, Foundations for Reconstruction (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Judson Press, 1946) 9.
[9] Ryken, 628.
[10] Another. 1 Samuel 16:7 “but the LORD looks upon the heart.”
[11] Ryken. 634.
[12] Ryken, 635.
