You'll recall from yesterday's study that we talked about how the first four commandments regard man's relationship with God and that the last six commandments have to do with man's relationship with his fellow humans.
Today we will look at the final three commandments and we begin with the eight one which says: "You shall not steal." (Exodus 20:15) The things that belong to us are the things God gives us and the things we earn by performing honest work. No one is to take these things from us and we do not have the right to take from anyone else what God has given them or what they have purchased for themselves with money they have earned. I doubt there has ever been a nation on earth that didn't consider stealing to be a crime because most people are able to understand that thievery is wrong. This is where sin enters the picture: when a person knows stealing is wrong but does it anyway. For a society to function properly, laws have to be enacted against stealing and penalties for stealing have to be imposed, so the Lord is laying down a foundation for the legal system and is establishing a rule book to guide the moral character of the nation.
Have you ever had anything stolen from you? I have. Several times. It's highly upsetting. Have you ever stolen anything? I have, at least once that I can remember. I stole some crayons from my second grade classroom. The teacher had several large metal canisters that she poured crayons into and each day during our art time she'd put one of the metal canisters at the head of every row of desks and each student was to grab a handful of crayons to take back to their desk for that day's drawing. Sometimes I'd end up with a crayon color that I didn't have at home and I'd stick it in my pocket. I don't recall having any real awareness of the wrongness of my actions, at least not from a religious viewpoint. Morally I may have known it was wrong but spiritually I wasn't troubled by it until later that school year. I remember sitting in the floor by the Christmas tree one evening with paper and crayons and suddenly being overcome with guilt and fear. My mom was sitting nearby on the couch reading the evening paper and I went over to her and asked her if a person could go to hell for stealing crayons. We had a nice talk and she was very helpful to me regarding how repentance and forgiveness works and how a person must return the things they have stolen. I'd been in church since infancy but was only just then reaching the age where some of the things I heard in church were really starting to make sense to me and apparently I'd heard the commandment against stealing. The Lord intends a person to read or hear the eighth commandment and avoid stealing, but if a person has already stolen, He intends this commandment to strike a holy fear in the heart of the thief so that the thief repents and finds strength in the Lord not to steal again.
The ninth commandment says, "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." (Exodus 20:16) The Lord Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, demonstrated that the word "neighbor" simply means our fellow man, not just the people who live on our street or the people who are of our same race or our same religion or our same sex or our same social class. So we could translate verse 16 as, "You shall not tell lies about any human being." We aren't to commit slander or libel against anyone. We aren't to give false testimony against anyone in court. We aren't to attack anyone's character with falsehoods or by spreading rumors.
Have you ever been the victim of lies and rumors? Two of the most bizarre rumors I've ever heard were about me! One was so weird that I just laughed it off and went on about my business. No one who knew even the least bit about me would have fallen for that particular lie. I don't even know who started that one. The other rumor was so personal and such an attack on my character that I was deeply troubled by it and I was afraid people would actually believe I'd been living this immoral lifestyle and keeping this dark secret. From what I could tell, no one seemed to believe it or even give it a second thought, but several decades later I can still clearly recall the fear and the hurt I felt at that time. I knew who started the rumor and I went to her to ask why she made up such a thing. She refused to answer any of my questions or even look at me. For a long time I wondered why she did it but later I came to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with me. She did it to gain a few minutes of attention for herself. While she was telling a tall tale she was experiencing the temporary satisfaction of five minutes of fame. That's it. That's the only reason for making up such an awful story against another human being, and that's why the Lord considers giving false testimony such an ugly sin that He included it in the ten commandments. False testimony can have long-lasting repercussions. No doubt there have been many people who've committed suicide due having their character falsely assassinated. Many people have been imprisoned due to false testimony. In the workplace I'm sure employees have been passed over for promotions because someone stirred up rumors against them. We do not have the right---ever!----to tell lies about another human being.
The tenth commandment says, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Exodus 20:17) The tenth commandment may appear closely related to the commandment against stealing, and in a lot of cases when a person steals it's because he covets something someone else has. But it goes even deeper than that. Coveting implies a discontent with one's own life. It implies dissatisfaction with one's own blessings and jealousy over someone else's blessings. It's a spirit of ingratitude. It leads to this kind of thinking, "How did Joe get such a pretty wife? He's no Mister America! Why should he have such an attractive woman to come home to every night when I'm going home to an empty house after work? I'd like to have his wife for myself. She's everything I'm looking for in a woman. I'm going to try to get her!" Covetousness leads to thoughts like this, "Lucy's house is so spacious and beautiful and she has such nice furnishings. Her house is so much nicer than mine that I'm ashamed to have her come over. Why does she have better stuff than I do? It's not fair! I'm living in a two bedroom house while she's living in that big four bedroom house. My furniture is twenty years old and she just bought a new living room suite. I'm starting to not like going over to her house. It makes me mad when I see all the pretty things she has. I'm starting to not even like her."
Covetousness can lead to stealing, but when it does it usually involves a more personal type of thievery. It's not so much the stealing of money or objects as it is the stealing of affections (as in the case of luring a person's spouse away from them) or the stealing of opportunities (using various means to put roadblocks in the path of another person's future success) or the stealing of happiness (causing the person you envy to not be able to enjoy what they have by bringing trouble into their lives).
It's interesting how the breaking of any of the ten commandments can have a snowball effect. Breaking one can lead to the breaking of others---or all. Not keeping the first commandment to honor God as Lord can lead to pretty much any behavior. That's why He placed that commandment at the head of the list, but we have to be on guard against breaking any of them. It's a slippery slope when we start to have little regard for any one of the commandments. Committing a particular sin becomes easier each time we commit it. Breaking one commandment also makes it easier to break the others. But the Lord has graciously provided us with these guidelines so we can regularly assess the condition of our hearts throughout our lives. If the idea of breaking any of these commandments doesn't trouble us, we need to repent and draw closer to the Lord. If we've already broken some of them and haven't repented, there's no better time than now.
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