Under the heading: “criminals are just plain stupid” come these news stories: In Kentucky two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the scene and drove home. With the chain still attached to the machine. With their bumper still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's license plate still attached to the bumper. Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills. A man convicted of robbery in Texas worked out a deal to pay $9600 in damages rather than serve a prison sentence. For payment, he provided the court a check--a *forged* check. He got 10 years. A man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled--leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars. We laugh at the stupidity nefarious and find humor in the antics of imbeciles because we can relate. No, we may not chain a bumper to the Tyme machine nor rob a store of $15 while forfeiting $20. But every time we try to wiggle out of obedience to God whether that be the promises we make to Him or to other people, we steal but do so always at a loss. When we do that which God forbids, or neglect that which He commands we do because we think we know better or we think that we'll achieve a better result, even a perceived good end, by disobeying that which God says we may not do. But yet we always lose. That is what this fifth and final sacrifice seeks to show. We are all guilty of robbing God.
DON’T ROB GOD Background to the guilt offering:We first admit our sin through the burnt offering which points to Christ’s propitious death. In the burnt offering the guilty sinner deserves to die, but an animal dies in his place. God accepts another as a ransom. This is a legal transaction; it takes place in a court room. The analogy of the sin offering is more medical. Sin brings impurity so that God can not dwell there. The blood disinfects the sanctuary so God may be present and not crush us sinners. In the guilt offering the picture is commercial. Sin is a debt which we incur against God due to our taking from Him. This offering says that we step over the boundary line when we try to deceive God and others by going back on our word. We are thieves as we try to rob God through disobedience and broken promises. If the burnt offering is the courtroom and the sin offering is the hospital, the guilt offering takes place in the office, at a store where we’ve been caught shoplifting. Unintentional sin: We looked at this last week. The unintentional nature here does not mean the sin is an accident. Sin never is accidental. To say this sin is unintentional means that it is not the express purpose of the sinner to rob God. The unintentional or sin of ignorance means that the one sinning is not doing so with malice and forethought as trying to defraud God. This is where most of our sins lie. We have motives and desires that cloud our thinking. We do not sin by raising our fist toward heaven to curse God while we sin. Our sin is the simple, evil response of thinking only of ourselves. Using the store mentality, the shoplifter steals unintentionally, that is, he doesn’t steal to get at the owner, but out of selfishness. What is stolen? Holy Things (verse 17): What this refers to is not quite clear. The plural form “holy things” is used again in Leviticus 22 and 27 to refer to the offerings, vows, the tithes that were to be given. The situation would be if you had dedicated a certain choice animal for a sacrifice, but company stops over and you decide to have roast lamb. You take that which is dedicated to worship God and you have a party. Or if you have made a promise to God about what to do with your life, but later review your options and change your mind. In that action - there has been a theft from God This is the person who has promised obedience but then does not follow through. There is a pastor I know who at his ordination promised to uphold God’s inerrant Word, who believed the Confession of Faith as containing the system of doctrine and approved of the form of government and discipline of the PCA. That he more or less did. But the vows he took also included to be subject to other believers and frankly he, being a rebellious sort, loved doing work on his own. He promised to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace of the Church but far too often his zeal was minimal and his faith was fragile and faltering. He vowed to be diligent in the exercise of all his duties as a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, whether personal or relational, private or public; and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in a manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of which God made him an overseer. But instead he found himself daydreaming in his study and hiding from people. His piety was formalistic and superficial. He had made a vow to God that had not been kept. What would you do with a wolf in such sheep’s clothing? Before you vote for tar and feathers - that pastor is me. People recently who’ve made the mistake of asking me how I’m doing have gotten a glimpse of my discouragement and lethargy. The chief source of this is my own sin of not being faithful to the Lord’s calling. Before you vote on my expulsion, let me ask a simple question ...”How have you done with your vows of membership to Cornerstone? Supporting the worship and work, studying the purity and peace, relying on the Holy Spirit?” Our position before God - debtors: This passage leaves the unmistakable realization that we are debtors to God, as we understand that this sin is not peculiar to ancient Israel, but is true for us today. We have defrauded God of what is rightfully his. He offers us grace and we cower in our corner, hoping He will not bother us. We want to go on with our lives, enjoy the wonderful riches of our employment, the beautiful summer weather, our fine families - all the while ignoring God, subjugating Him to a minor place in our lives. As we profess faith in Christ we are then called to live in light of that faith by obedience to His commands and to the promises we vowed when we made a public profession of that faith. We are not promise keepers, but promise breakers. We are more like those of Malachi’s time than we’d ever like to admit. We constantly are robbing God. Malachi 3:6-12 shows us that we deserve God’s condemnation because we have robbed him. The words of the Lord’s Prayer are words we must constantly be reminded of: "forgive us our debts." That is what this sacrifice is all about - a debtor's sacrifice, a trespass or guilt offering, for we are guilty. But our guilt is not just in the way we steal from God, but also we see in this passage: DON’T ROB OTHERS The next category is closely related to the first - rather than stealing from God, here the person takes from another person. But notice how that is described: unfaithfulness to the Lord. Not only that, this person compounds the problem by (verse 3) lying when confronted. To abuse an oath, a person takes God’s holy name in vain, he trespasses God’s holiness. The robbery which takes place here is that of goods entrusted to a person. In a day and age before storage sheds and safe deposit boxes, when business or flocks might necessitate one to be away from home for a period of time, when wars would ravage a land for years, it was natural to leave possession in the care of a trusted person or with those who kept watch over the village. Many must have succumbed to the temptation of theft, especially since an inventory of the goods was not always drawn up. What is prohibited here is using legal maneuvers to delay payment which belongs to others or keeping something that is found. "Finder’s keepers, losers weepers" is not a biblical principle. The problem here is that the person is unconcerned at the anxiety the lost item may give to the one losing it. It is selfishness in the extreme. We cannot build up our joy over the sorrow or loss of another. Robbery is not just taking that which does not belong to us, but in the lies we tell to cover up the truth we owe to each other. According to experts, shading the truth is a common practice. As reported in USA Today, Jerald Jellison said, "Each of us fibs at least 50 times a day." He explained that we lie about our age, our income, or our accomplishments. And we use lies to escape embarrassment. A common reason for "little white lies," we're told, is to protect someone else's feelings. Yet in so doing, we are really protecting ourselves. According to Jellison, here are some of our most commonly used fibs: "I wasn't feeling well." "I didn't want to hurt your feelings." "The check is in the mail." "I was just kidding." "I was only trying to help." What we don’t realize is that the common, ordinary, everyday sins we commit against each other are directed against God. That is the reason behind Matthew 5:23-24 where one is about to present a special offering to God only to then remember that someone has a grudge against them. Worship of God is impossible as long as the horizontal relationship is damaged. So how are we do deal with this sin? We rob God as we leave unfulfilled our obligations to Him as well as when we take that which is not ours. What is to be our motivation to not rob God and others. How are we to understand this guilt offering? DON’T ROB GOD OR OTHERS BECAUSE GOD DESIRES TO GIVE We live like thieves, stealing from God by breaking our word with Him and others. We rob God because we think Him too miserly to give. We steal from Him our tithes, we renege on our promises, we take from others, because we believe the lie of the serpent that God is not looking out for our best. But so often we rob God and others because we don’t understand that we serve a God who desires to give. There is no reason to steal from God because God wants nothing more than to give something to you. But too often our motivations are far from clear on this issue. You may give because of duty: God is your Creator. All the earth is the Lord’s and we are His creation. For that reason there is an obligation we owe to our God. True - but not very moving to serve. This is pure law - it must be obeyed, but it contains little power to make us do right, other than servile fear. The critically acclaimed film from a few years ago, "Glengarry Glen Ross," revealed the grim spectacle of what happens when employers cease treating their staff with compassion. The story takes place in a real estate firm where the salesmen must either produce a certain quota of sales or be fired. At one point a higher-up from the downtown office comes in to deliver a marrow-chilling speech in which he degrades the individual salesmen because of their low sales and further terrorizes them by promising a speedy sacking of anyone who fails to meet that month's target amount of sales. Their future with the firm, but also their worth as persons, is determined solely by the dollars they rake in. If they cannot close their deals and get their customers to sign on the dotted line, they are worthless. The more this man talks, the more it becomes evident that for him people do not exist - only dollar figures do. At one point one of the salesmen asks the higher-up, "Who are you anyway?" His reply: "Who am I, pal? You see my watch - it cost more than your car. That's who I am!" That is how we sometimes picture God. He comes to us from the home office in order to spur us on to do what is right. His watch costs more than our car, our house, all we own. We are to listen to Him because He is God, that’s who. God is a task master who, if we do not pay our vows on time, if we take that which is not ours - he demands 20% on top of that which we took as a fine to keep us in check. Isn’t that how we often read this passage. We pay out of duty, out of guilt. You remember the story about the man who wrote the Internal Revenue Service to report some income tax he had evaded several years before. He included a check with his note and said, "Here is what I owe you. And if I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest!" Having said that - we must acknowledge that it is indeed true that God is greater than we and we have a duty to serve Him. But that is not the motivation to serve God, nor is that the response this passage seeks to impose on us. You may give because of gratitude: God is your Savior. Again this is another motivation from which we may respond to God. We send Him our thanks by serving and obeying Him. Sending thank you notes is incumbent when we’ve received a gift. Our kids have found a good alternative and fun way to do this with computer postcards. All the relatives who are wired to the Net now get beautiful cards. That will last only as long as the fun of the web remains fun. Gratitude is very important. I certainly see that as a invaluable means by which we respond to God. But too often that is where we end. We serve God out of duty whether that be due to His sovereign power in creation or in remembrance of His mercy in redemption. Not wrong motivations, but not the ones God desires us to move us each day. You should give because of getting: God is gracious. When we give for the first two reasons, that is nice, but not lasting. It isn’t much motivation. Actually it is giving out of a sense of the weight of the law. One need not understand the gospel for that. But when we give out of a sense of what we’ll get in return, there is motivation. That sounds rather hedonistic, self centered. But that is at the core of the biblical motivation to obey. For that reason the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks a question that seems rather odd at first, but teaches this same motivation. The famous first Question asks: “What is the chief end of man?” To which the reply is: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” For all you English majors out there do you see a problem? Singular verb with plural objects. This is because the answer is singular. Glorifying God is realized in our enjoyment of Him. The second statement clarifies the first. This is not self centered, but is God centered. Our lives must circle around not what we can give to God, but what He offers to give to us. (Psalm 50:7-15) God owns it all. It is as though God were to say: “If I had a need why would I ever tell you? You’d be the last one to know.” Why do we go to God? To give him something He lacks? Never, but rather to receive something He has to offer. It's like the child who comes to you for $5 to go buy you a present. What is pictured in the guilt offering should surprise us. The ram that is sacrificed again points us to what God does for us in sending Christ as the sacrifice for our sins. We have stolen from Him, but he turns around and sacrifices for us His own Son. There is nothing we can give to Him, but there is everything He willingly gives to us. Then the fifth that is given as part of the reparation, the repayment seems to us to be tacked on. But this was understood to be what was known as a double tithe. The 1/5 or 20% was not so much a punishment, but an opportunity to get back what was lost in the sin. The tithe is not a means of payment to God, but the means by which God blesses us. The repayment is not a slap on the hand, but a desire to receive all that God has to offer. This idea of the tithe as an opportunity to get from God is seen in Malachi 3:10-12 Our giving to God is never because He has a need, but because it is an opportunity for God to give so much more to us. We fall into this sin because our view of God is far too small. We see Him as a miser who grudgingly gives rather than a loving Father who seeks to pour out his entire inheritance on His sons and daughters. He does that here with bread and wine. He sets before us food and drink so that we might be nourished and refreshed, strengthened for today and tomorrow. He invites a band of thieves to admit their embezzlement and corruption and join Him in His home for a meal. It is to that table I invite you this morning. It is here God desires to pour out on you all His grace. You are here to give nothing to God but your self and your sin so that you can receive all He has to offer to you. |
