Sunday, November 26, 2023 PM

Making for yourself a graven image. You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother. Do not murder. Do not steal or do not commit adultery.

Do not steal. Do not bear false witness and do not covet. And we can say those very quickly and they don't occupy that much space on a poster on a wall or a plaque on the wall. And we also have them engraved on various government buildings throughout the United States.

I went to Boston and Plymouth and various places and seen Ten Commandments engraved in stone on things that nobody can take out unless they get some dynamite or a really, really, really big wrecking ball.

Otherwise, they would have been removed a long time ago. Words from the Bible on government buildings,.

How dare they?

But that used to be common. But when we read those Ten Commandments on the monuments or on the poster on the wall, or we recite them from memory, there is a whole lot of detail that we're not including, that we're not including.

And it was all instruction that God gave to Israel, in particular, as he has gathered the nation, delivered them up out of Egypt, and gathered the nation there at the foot of Mount Sinai. And he has some things that are particular to his relationship with them.

And we're going to review a little bit of that in a moment. But when we think about the Ten Commandments, it would be helpful to remember them in their original context. We've been told many times when we study the Bible and we read the scripture to not take things out of context.

And that goes for the Ten Commandments too. Shouldn't take them out of context either. And so we think about do not steal. And that's the seventh commandment, the seventh word. We want to understand how it is that this, along with the other commandments, all that which makes up the law, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ has come to fulfill the law and the prophets.

And that Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for all who believe, Romans 10, verse four.

What does that mean?

Ultimately, it means that these things are fulfilled in Christ. They're actually about him. And the question is, in what way? And that's what we're exploring. And so we've been thinking about the connection.

And the connection is made most easily by thinking about why these things are so. Why is stealing wrong? God said so, that's correct. Why is it wrong for someone made in his image to steal something that he has given to somebody else?

Well, it goes against the entirety of how God made us for his own glory. He created us in his image to love him supremely, to bless him, to worship him, to bring glory to his name. I mean, when God made us in his image, that means that he made us for his fame, for his name.

This was what the great sin of those who gathered in the plains of Shinar to build the Tower of Babel. It wasn't that they built a tower, that's not the sin. It's not like people who build skyscrapers today are doing a bad thing.

What did they do? They gathered there, they said to make a name for ourselves. That's not why God made us. He didn't make us to make a name for ourselves, but to make a name for him, to praise him, and exalt him, and to magnify him.

That's why we exist. The Westminster Catechism says, what is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. So why did God make us? For his glory, for his goodness. Well, when we're stealing something from somebody else, we're denying him that glory.

We are saying something, oh God, you didn't give me that, and I'm going to take it, right? So we're not submitting to him, and trusting in him as our provider and as our creator. Also, when God made us in his image, he made us to love one another rightly.

God didn't make Adam alone by himself. In fact, he said, it's not good for the man to be alone. But he made Adam in the image of God according to his likeness. He made Eve in the image of God according to his likeness, didn't he?

He made them both together and put them into that most special relationship of marriage, which is the foundation for all human relationships, of all human society, everywhere. You get marriage wrong, you get all human society wrong.

History tells the tale about that one. And that just goes to show that God made us to love one another rightly. And he said, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth,.

And so do it.

Look, I've given you all these things to be stewards of. Well, I'm not loving someone rightly, nor am I loving God supremely when I take their stuff. That's not stewarding creation responsibly. So, stealing is wrong because it's against the glory of God.

It's against the way which God has made us, the very design of who we are made in his image. So, stealing was wrong before God set it at Mount Sinai. It was wrong in the days of Adam and Eve when they stole from God's tree that God said, you can have all of you want over here, but nothing from this tree.

And they stole. That wasn't yours. Adam and Eve, that tree's not yours to eat from. They stole. It was wrong then. It was wrong before God set it at Sinai. And we thought about that, and we thought about how it is that God is the provider, and all life belongs to him.

We thought about his relationship with Noah as he made a covenant with Noah. And God also made a covenant with Abraham. And God promised to him a great people, promised to him a place, promised to greatly bless Abraham and his seed, and made a covenant with Abraham.

And Abraham is presented with these promises. You're going to have a wonderful land and a bountiful progeny. You're gonna have all these descendants. You're gonna be a father of many nations. And as we begin to think about the storyline of Abraham, we come to Genesis chapter 25.

And Abraham begot Isaac. And Isaac begot who? He begot Jacob, but you know, he begot more than Jacob. Here's another guy.

Esau.

Esau.

Yeah.

And in order of their birth, it was Esau and Jacob, not Jacob and Esau. So as we're seeing the promises of God to Abraham unfold, that indeed he had descendants, and indeed there is this land that will be given to his descendants, we have Jacob and Esau.

And in verse 29 of Genesis 25, we have been given a contrast between Esau and Jacob. Esau is very hairy and thus his name is Esau, which means hairy. The color of his hair was red. So he's called Edom, which means red.

So he had two names he went by. He went by either hairy or red, whichever one you want to call him. And Esau was a hunter. And Jacob, he cared for sheep close to home. So he domesticated animals instead of hunting wild animals.

And they are very different people, but in some ways there are a lot alike. So verse 29, now Jacob cooked a stew and Esau came in from the field and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, please feed me some of that red stew for I'm weary.

Therefore his name was called Edom. So he's also called red because of the red stew that he wanted to eat. But Jacob said, sell me your birthright as of this day. So the birthright is the idea of who is considered to be the firstborn.

Now this wasn't everything, but this was part of it. Well, they're twins after all. They both were in their mother's womb at the same time. So, hey, maybe this isn't that big of a deal. Sell me your birthright as of this day.

And Esau said, look, I'm about to die. So what is this birthright to me? Then Jacob said, swear to me as of this day. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils.

And he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. So he didn't really care much about it, did he? He did not care about it very much. Now, later on, later on, what did Esau say about what Jacob did?

No, no, no.

Well, to add insult to injury, Jacob conspired with his mother. Jacob conspired with his mother and they deceived Isaac into blessing Jacob rather than Esau. Jacob put on Esau's clothes and he put the skins of wooly animals on his arms so he would feel hairy just like his brother.

And he tried to mimic Esau and went into Isaac who was blind, who thought he was about to die and was gonna give the blessing of the firstborn to Esau. But Jacob tricked him and his mother made stew to taste like that which Esau would make.

And Isaac ended up blessing Jacob as the firstborn. So Jacob has the birthright and the blessing. Well, Esau did not care for that. And he, so verse 35, when Esau found out, Isaac says to Esau, who's crying with a great and bitter cry.

And Isaac says in verse 35, but he said, your brother came with deceit. He came with deceit and has taken away your blessing. Now, when we studied the word for steal in the original Hebrew, that's simply, that's exactly what it means, to take with deceit.

So Isaac says to Esau, Jacob has stolen your blessing. And Esau said, is he not rightly named Jacob? Which literally means heel grabber. If you're in a fight and you're on the ground, you grab somebody's heel and lift up, that person is usually, you know, they fall down.

Okay, supplanter, heel grabber, somebody who trips somebody else up, who tricks them, who deceives them. Is he not rightly named Jacob for he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright and now look, he has taken away my blessing.

So Esau is saying, Jacob has stolen from me. And he had, and he had. You know, it's a strange thing, isn't it? When you read the story of Jacob and Esau. Esau was a rough guy, married several wives, none of them very caring about the Lord God, idolaters.

But then again, you know, and even though Esau was murderously hateful and bitter towards his brother, was his brother such a standup guy? What about this Jacob, you know? It's hard to figure when God said to their mother, Jacob, I have loved, Esau, I have hated.

And before they ever, before they ever got into these fights, before Jacob ever tricked his brother, before Esau was ever bitter against him, before any of that, God said, Jacob, I have loved, Esau, I have hated.

Jacob, and you know, how do we tell the difference? How do we tell the difference in the storyline? One of the most interesting chapters, I think, in all the Bible is Genesis 36. And when you read Genesis 36, it is the story, the entire history of the family of Esau, the dynasty of Esau, all the things that happened, how his descendants ended up becoming a nation called Edom.

And you'll read about Edom in the Old Testament and the different ways that they were political enemies of Israel and so on. You know, what's interesting about Genesis 36 and all of the kings and dynasty and wealth of Esau and his descendants, God is not mentioned one time.

What does it look like? What is one expression of what it looks like when God says he hates someone? He leaves them entirely alone, right? So, despite what our culture may think, it is not love for God to say, you do you.

In the Bible, that's an expression of his hatred. You do you all you want. I'm hands off. That's hatred. That's not love. What about Jacob? God hounded Jacob. Didn't let Jacob alone. When Jacob was on the run, having stolen the birthright and the blessing from Esau, and he's heading out to his relatives, Laban, because his mom doesn't want to see Esau kill Jacob and then Esau have to die because he murdered somebody.

She was afraid she'd lose both sons in one day. So the parents, they send Jacob away and Jacob's on his way out. And he stops at a place and goes to sleep with a stone as a pillow. And what happens? God hounds him.

He sees a vision. He sees a ladder going to heaven, a steep stairway going up to heaven. Angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And God repeats the blessing, the covenantal promises that he made to Abraham and Isaac.

He says them to Jacob. And Jacob says, surely I did not know that God was in this place. And he sets the stone up as a monument and says, this is Bethel, Bethel, the house of God. And Jacob goes on to go to meet Laban.

On the way, he sees a young woman coming in with a flock of sheep and boys. And what has he taken with her? And finds out that she's of his relative's house, which is a signal that she's one that he could probably marry.

And all of the shepherds had gathered together around this well. And nobody had removed this massive stone covering off the well. And he's like, why are you not watering your flocks? And he is a thing, he knows how to tend to sheep.

So we gotta wait till everyone's here so that we can all work together to move the stone off. This is apparently some sort of truce and treaty that they've made with one another. He says, forget that.

And Jacob does the work of 10 men and lifts the stone off of the cover of the well. Now he'd do that simply because he'd been working out. He'd do that because he was inspired by love and the power of God was upon him.

God is working in his life. And he meets Laban, works for Laban. And Laban finally says, okay, what do you wanna work for? And Jacob says, I'll work for your daughter's hand. He didn't have anything to pay Laban as a dowry.

So he's like, I'll work for Rachel's hand. For seven years, I'll work for you. Laban says, deal. And he steals from Jacob. He stole seven years of labor from Jacob and tricked Jacob when Jacob was good and drunk on the wedding week.

Drink feast all week long. And the wedding night, the older sister Leah, she's given to Jacob as a wife. Jacob just got stole from. Seven years, did not get what he had bargained for. And so he works a whole nother seven years for Rachel's hand as well.

Works another six years for Laban in which time Laban continually tries to supplant Jacob. And Jacob works to supplant Laban. And they have all kinds of contract labor disputes, shall we say, in which Laban keeps on changing the wages of Jacob.

And Jacob keeps on finagling things to end up with the lion's share of Laban's flock until such time as relationships are so bad that Jacob tells his wives, by that time he has four. Oh my.

Okay.

Rachel and Leah and each one of their handmaidens, now he's got two upper class wives and two concubines. If he had just remembered what God had said at the beginning, one man for one woman, right? So he's got a chaotic household and he tells his wives, he's like, look, we've got to get out of here.

Laban and his sons, we're getting to the point where it's going to be a range war and there's going to be bloodshed. We got to get out of here.

So they leave.

But you know, remember what Rachel did on the way out?

She stole.

She stole her daddy's gods. And these are the kinds of gods that you can pick up and put in your pocket. Not very powerful gods.

Poor little gods.

They couldn't help it. They got picked up and carried off. Old Testament is full of a mockery like that. Laban pursues and he's going to have it out with Jacob because you stole my gods and so on. But God stops Laban.

Says, you don't lay a hand on Jacob or you're going to be in trouble. So they have a showdown. Jacob gets away with it or Rachel gets away with it, apparently, and they move on. And they camp, when they camp, the angels of God are around Jacob and his encampment and they protect him.

And he gets where the Esau's on his way. Oh no, Esau, bitter Esau, who's coming with 400 armed men. Jacob's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. He sends massive gifts and homage to Esau trying to placate his angry brother.

And he puts his household on one side of a river and he goes on to the other and he's trying to do everything he can to fix the situation but Jacob's not going to be enough to fix the situation. And that night, you know what happens?

Jacob gets bushwhacked. In the middle of the night, in the dark, we read in the original, a man wrestled Jacob till daybreak. And the idea, the tense of the verb is put into the strongest sense. A guy jumped out of nowhere and clocked Jacob and was on him and Jacob was wrestling and trying to do everything he could to stay alive.

Who was this?

It was God. It was God. Changed his name to Israel, one who struggles with God. Changed his name, touched his hip, made him limp the rest of his life, changed everything about Jacob. Well, that's love.

God hounding Jacob every step of the way, watching over him, protecting him, directing his life. That's love. Oh, Esau, you do you. Jacob, I'm not going to let you alone. You're going to end up where I want you to end up and despite all your efforts to the contrary.

And that's a great contrast that you see in the story. And then you read later on in the Bible. You can read in the latter prophets or read in the New Testament. Here come Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated.

How can you tell? Those he loves, he doesn't leave alone. Good luck escaping God if he loves you, right? I can't, now look, something as simple, something as simple as if you love your child and you're not going to leave them alone, you're going to talk to them, you're going to pray for them.

You're going to try to invest in their life and help them. You're going to try to be there for them when you love your child. If someone doesn't love their child, what do they do? Leave them, abandon them, sign them away, whatever, right?

You can see the difference. Well, Jacob, Jacob tried to steal to make his way forward but it was only the provision of God that stabilized Jacob and made things what they ought to be. What kind of, there's a lot of theft in Jacob's life.

Rachel stole a bunch, he stole a bunch. Is that a good pattern for the burgeoning family of Jacob now named Israel? He's got all these sons and they're going to have sons and they're going to have sons and what was the promise?

You're going to be a great nation. Is that a good pattern to have in a nation where people just steal from each other all the time and try to get one over on the other guy? Bad idea, that's not going to work.

That is contrary to the way that God has made us in his image and so we, God is going to clarify that these things are theft and they're wrong, right? We know they're wrong, but as Paul says, the law makes sin exceedingly sinful.

Just how wrong is stealing? Well, the law of God shines a big, bright spotlight on stealing to the point you know just how bad it is. Some of that's kind of uncomfortable. You read the Bible, you read the law of God and then we discover just how exceedingly sinful sin really is, right?

And that's what happens when God makes a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. We're told in the New Testament that God's law was added in Galatians, we're told, Galatians three, God's law was added because of transgressions.

God's dealing with Abraham and his descendants and so forth, but God's law was added because of transgressions. Theft was one of those. Stealing was one of those things. So when we come to the covenant that God made with Israel, he has some things to say about theft.

So let's look in Leviticus chapter six,.

Leviticus chapter six and verses one through seven.

Now, of course, the seventh commandment, the seventh word says, do not steal. Well, what if someone does steal? What then? There's more clarification about how this is going to work in the life of Israel.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, if a person sins and commits a trespass against the Lord by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or about a pledge, or about a robbery, or if he's extorted from his neighbor, or if he has found what was lost and lies concerning it and swears falsely.

Wow, you know how it is. You tell a child, don't do this. And like, yeah, but can I do this? You know, I'll find some sort of loophole, right? You know, every April 15th, right? Everyone's like, how many loopholes can we get through so we don't, you know, everyone's, here's all the laws.

And then somebody is like, yeah, but here's all the loopholes, right? A constant battle between laws and loopholes. Well, here, we know it's wrong to steal. But someone's like, well, I didn't take something from someone.

I just didn't let them know that I had it, but it was theirs. No, this is, you see how the law shows how exceedingly sinful sin is, by clarifying it, by clarifying it. So, in any one of these things that a man may do in which he sins, verse four, then it shall be because he has sinned and is guilty that he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing which he has extorted, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he has found, or all that which about he has sworn falsely, he shall restore its full value, add one fifth more to it, and give it to whomever it belongs on the day of his trespass offering.

And he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord, or ran without blemish from the flock, with your valuation as a trespass offering to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any one of these things that he may have done in which he trespasses.

Now, it's very interesting, isn't it? You know, one of the ways in which sometimes the Old Testament law is understood is to divide it up into three parts as kind of an explanation as to why some of it still matters and some of it doesn't, okay?

In other words, the Ten Commandments is often described as the moral law, which still matters today. And then there are other laws like sacrifices and rituals and stuff, and that is a ceremonial law, and all that was fulfilled in Jesus, so we don't do that anymore.

And then there's civil law or judicial law, which was the way that Israel did their court system and their crime and punishment and that kind of thing. And that was good for them, and we can find some carryover for that, but that was for Israel, not for us.

You know, what I just read here, the moral law, the judicial law, and the official law, if those are real categories, are all mentioned together, all mixed up as one. You know, it's all one thing. It's all one thing, which is, I think, why when we come to the New Testament, we're told time and again that Jesus Christ fulfills the law, period, not one-third of the law or two-thirds of the law.

The whole thing, the whole thing hangs together. The whole thing hangs together. Just an interesting observation. So you see how sinful stealing is when you look at this. Look at all the different ways that we might end up stealing.

Paul, God is saying through Moses to Israel, look at all the different ways you could steal from somebody else. And then when you steal from someone, when you try to make restitution, it's not just about giving it back because they are without this for a certain period of time, and that is a cost to them as well, so then you have to add at least one-fifth to it, and in some cases, we read in the Mosaic Law, sometimes you had to restore two-fold or four-fold what you stole.

So that just kind of shines a light how bad theft is. Now, how do people generally try to talk about theft today if they want to talk about theft and it's not a big deal? What kind of things do they say?

So their environment, you know, if you're in a bad environment, then theft is, so protoplasm under certain heat and conditions just has a natural reaction and who can complain, right? Right, it's certain stimuli, right?

So here's just an organism that is being put under certain stressors and it has a certain chemical reaction, so there's nothing really wrong about that, you just need to change the environment in which this protoplasm exists.

You see, that's the evolutionary materialistic mindset, right, but the people who might say that when they get stolen from, they get angry. You know, like, until my car is, until that person's car is stolen and then they're like, hey, that's not fair.

Where does that come from? God has made us in his image, therefore we know it's wrong when someone steals from us. We might steal from others and try to suppress the truth and unrighteousness and try to give it some sort of name, but the law shows us just how sinful sin really is.

And there's a lot of other passages to read about theft in the Mosaic Law. There's a lot of passages about it and the way in which it's described and all the ways that you have to make restitution for it just shows you what a huge problem stealing is, what a horrible thing stealing is in a society and how much you have to do to try to make it right and even when you try to make it right, you know, all the things that have gone wrong, all you can do is offer a sacrifice to God and say, oh God, forgive us and heal our broken society, you know.

A brief word about King David and we'll be done. When we think about the covenant that God made with David, we just heard this wonderful reading of the scriptures from our brother Andrew about, did you see how the focus in Kings was like, well, this King and then that King and this King and that King and all the ups and downs of the nation were completely tied to that one King.

Well, that's the nature of it. God made a covenant with Israel at large, but then it's all consolidated down to one King and how he does, okay. Well, David begot Solomon and Solomon wrote a wonderful book called Proverbs in which he says, listen my son and he specifically warns his son, this is wisdom for Kings, do not hang out with people who steal.

Proverbs chapter one, in Proverbs chapter one, verses 13 through 15, he says, do not hang out with those who say, let's go lay in wait, wait for someone to come along, let's bushwhack them, take their stuff, divide the spoil.

Solomon says, son, do not hang out with those people. Hey, that's great wisdom, a father to a son, that's a bad idea. Wisdom for Kings. And it doesn't matter which way we cut it, whenever we look at the covenants that God made with man, with Noah or Abraham or Israel and David, they're all in the shape of the image of God, hearkening back to the way that God designed us in the garden and looking forward to the revelation of Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

And we'll pick up on what Jesus thinks about stealing and theft next time, all right. That's the plan, all right. Well, let's close by singing the docks off.