[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Thou shalt not steal. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You can hardly take up a paper now without reading of some cashier of a bank who has become a defaulter, or of some large swindling operation that has ruined scores, or of some breach of trust, or fraudulent failure in business.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]WHERE THE STREAM STARTS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The stream generally starts at home and in the school. Parents are woefully lax in their condemnation and punishment of the sin of stealing. The child begins by taking sugar, it may be. The mother makes light of it at first, and the child's conscience is violated without any sense of wrong. By and by it is not an easy matter to check the habit, because it grows and multiplies with every new commission.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Partial obedience is not enough: obedience must be entire. The little indulgences, the small transgressions are what drive religion out of the soul. They lay the foundation for the grosser sin. If you give way to little temptations, you will not be able to resist when great temptations come to you.[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]GOD'S WEIGHTS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Extortioner, are you ready to step into the scales? What will you do with the condemnation of God-- "Thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God" (Eze 22: 12)? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Employer, are you guilty of sweating your employees? Have you defrauded the hireling of his wages? Have you paid starvation wages? "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates (Deu 24:14). What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts (Is 3:15). Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth" (Ja 5:4). [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And you, employee, have you been honest with your employer? Have you robbed him of his due by wasting your time when he was not looking? If God should summon you into His presence now, what would[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif],[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]you say?[/FONT] Let the merchant step into the scales. See if you will prove light when weighed against the law of God.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?" (Mic 611; "Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small: thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Deu 25:13-16). [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]STOLEN GOODS A BURDEN
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Everything you steal is a curse to you in that way. [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I may be speaking to some clerk who perhaps took five cents today out of his employer's drawer to buy a cigar; perhaps he took ten cents to get a shave, and thinks he will put it back tomorrow--no one will ever know it. If you have taken a cent, you are a thief. Do you ever think how those little stealings may bring you to ruin? Let your employer find it out. If he doesn't take you into court, he will discharge you. Your hopes will be blasted, and it will be hard work to get up again. Whatever condition you are in, do not take a cent that does not belong to you. Rather than steal, go up to heaven in poverty--go up to heaven from the poorhouse. Be honest rather than go through the world in a gilded chariot of stolen riches. [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]RESTITUTION[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If you have ever taken money dishonestly, you need not pray God to forgive you and fill you with the Holy Ghost until you make restitution. If you have not got the money now to pay back, will to do it, and God accepts the willing mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Many a man is kept in darkness and unrest because he fails to obey God on this point.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You can hardly take up a paper now without reading of some cashier of a bank who has become a defaulter, or of some large swindling operation that has ruined scores, or of some breach of trust, or fraudulent failure in business.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]WHERE THE STREAM STARTS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The stream generally starts at home and in the school. Parents are woefully lax in their condemnation and punishment of the sin of stealing. The child begins by taking sugar, it may be. The mother makes light of it at first, and the child's conscience is violated without any sense of wrong. By and by it is not an easy matter to check the habit, because it grows and multiplies with every new commission.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Partial obedience is not enough: obedience must be entire. The little indulgences, the small transgressions are what drive religion out of the soul. They lay the foundation for the grosser sin. If you give way to little temptations, you will not be able to resist when great temptations come to you.[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]GOD'S WEIGHTS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Extortioner, are you ready to step into the scales? What will you do with the condemnation of God-- "Thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God" (Eze 22: 12)? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Employer, are you guilty of sweating your employees? Have you defrauded the hireling of his wages? Have you paid starvation wages? "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates (Deu 24:14). What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts (Is 3:15). Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth" (Ja 5:4). [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And you, employee, have you been honest with your employer? Have you robbed him of his due by wasting your time when he was not looking? If God should summon you into His presence now, what would[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif],[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]you say?[/FONT] Let the merchant step into the scales. See if you will prove light when weighed against the law of God.
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?" (Mic 611; "Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small: thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Deu 25:13-16). [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]STOLEN GOODS A BURDEN
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Everything you steal is a curse to you in that way. [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I may be speaking to some clerk who perhaps took five cents today out of his employer's drawer to buy a cigar; perhaps he took ten cents to get a shave, and thinks he will put it back tomorrow--no one will ever know it. If you have taken a cent, you are a thief. Do you ever think how those little stealings may bring you to ruin? Let your employer find it out. If he doesn't take you into court, he will discharge you. Your hopes will be blasted, and it will be hard work to get up again. Whatever condition you are in, do not take a cent that does not belong to you. Rather than steal, go up to heaven in poverty--go up to heaven from the poorhouse. Be honest rather than go through the world in a gilded chariot of stolen riches. [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]RESTITUTION[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If you have ever taken money dishonestly, you need not pray God to forgive you and fill you with the Holy Ghost until you make restitution. If you have not got the money now to pay back, will to do it, and God accepts the willing mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Many a man is kept in darkness and unrest because he fails to obey God on this point.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
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