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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Stealing in the Church

Well, I want to ask you a very simple question.

I remember as a kid in Collegedale, same house my parents are in now, that in the middle of the night, maybe around 1, 2 o'clock in the morning, my parents woke up to the van starting up in the driveway.

We used to park the van outside most of the time.

It was very difficult for us to manage 2 cars in the garage.

And so the van was there and my dad woke up and sure enough Marilyn was there and The van was running and it was tearing out the back of the driveway and so he jumped up in just his skivvies, ran down the stairs, ran outside and there he found the van.

We have a relatively straight, well it is a straight driveway, it's not too far, maybe here to the back of the church doors or something.

And there's a ditch right before it gets to the road, and they figured that if they were gonna make it out of the driveway, they were just gonna have to go for it.

They went into the ditch, smacked a little brick thing around our mailbox that Dad made, and put some bricks across the road, and when they got that far and got stuck they just bailed and ran and left the van running in the middle of the night and we got our van back but it made for a very exciting story.

Of course the question was how are they able to start up your van and get that far.

Well, that was when dad every night would just leave the keys in the ignition.

But they were going through the neighborhood and finding in vehicles what they could.

And then when they saw, oh, there's keys in this 1, they decided to make a go of it.

In thinking back to Elizabeth and I, in terms of when we were robbed, there was a time when we were up at the seminary up in Michigan, and we were renting a house, and it was, I don't know, maybe a mile or so from the school and I would bike my way to and from the seminary to save on gas money as a seminarian.

And we happened to be on the phone as I was, I don't know if I was getting out of class or I was in class.

We were already on the phone though, weren't we?

We were already on the phone, we were talking, and Elizabeth said, these were the old school flip phones, you know, the tiny little ones, and she said, David, this is the weirdest thing, but somebody just stole our weed eater out of our garage.

And I said, ha ha ha, no really, they're on a bicycle.

They just came right in, walked in, took the weed eater, and they left.

And we're on the phone, and I'm on my pedal bike at this point, And I'm going, what street do you think they're on now?

And I'm calling some friends of mine, get on your bike.

Somebody on a bicycle has our weed eater.

And we ended up across 31 and another neighborhood by the lake there and sure enough, we found the weed eater bandit.

You know, our garage looks something similar like this, except our weed eater was right by the garage door and it was gone.

And so I politely asked this young man, could I have my weed eater back?

And I kept pressing him until finally, in his shame, he gave me my weed eater back and I continued to use it from there after.

I really don't know what he had in mind if he was going to outrig his bicycle with the weed eater mower, as some people do, or this looked pretty creative to me, this young man.

It's this idea that somebody knew that this was not theirs, but they took it anyway.

They just snatched it, they just stole it.

And if it's a smaller thing, in most states, between less than $400 or $500, it's petty theft, right?

I'm not happy It was mine and I don't have another 1 and it was really sharp, too The National Association for shoplifting prevention gives us some of these statistics 1 in 11 people in our nation shoplift There's not a little bit disturbing to you men and women shoplift equally.

So don't point the finger at your spouse.

25% of shoplifters are kids, and 75% are adults, with half of all shoplifters saying they started in their teens.

And then only caught once in every 48 times that they steal.

Are we paying tax on that do you suppose?

Are they having to hike up their prices to pay for the people that are taking stuff?

The habitual shoplifter steals 1.6 times a week.

So how you steal .6 times in a week, I don't know, but you understand the averages.

Exodus 20 verse 15 says very plainly, Thou shalt not steal.

I mean, it's 1 of the shortest commandments.

You know, you've heard of the five-finger discount, or I've heard people say, well, you know that fruit is a lot cheaper in the vineyard after dark thou shall not steal.

My question I want to ask this morning is is there stealing in the church?

Thank you Desiree for taking us through that scripture reading.

Will a man rob God yet you have robbed me?

But you say, in probably a little bit of a whiny voice, in what way have we robbed you?

We'll talk about offerings next time, but in ties and offerings.

If I were to tell you and inform you about all the various conquests and that I went into our ABC and I just took this it was full of leather and it was kind of Expensive but I really wanted it So I just took it and then I went to the the Apple Store and I just took this iPad and I took this computer I stole these shoes.

I just went in with my clunkers and I walked out with these.

Yet for some reason, people rob God all the time.

We'll rob each other and this is terrible but we'll rob God and well he's such a loving God and a gracious God and a forgiving God.

Therefore I just take and I take and I take.

It's interesting and sad, really, when you stop and think about it.

You know, it's interesting, on all of the bills, if you still deal with cash, what does it say?

To return a faithful tithe is to simply say that very statement, God I trust you, with the other 90% or what remains.

I mean by the time you give offering and some of those other things, it'll be less than that.

The question that we need to ask is, do we really trust God?

And what does it say about us to say, well, God, I'll give you my heart.

Just don't ask for my pocketbook, because that I'm keeping.

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Stealing in the Church

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