The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1901, Page 10

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

(For the LUTHERAN PIONEER.)
The Seventh Commandment.

Which is the Seventh Commandment?
Thou shalt not steal.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God, that we may
not take our neighbor's money or goods, nor
get them by false ware or dealing; but help
him to improve and protect his property and
business.

In the explanation of the First Article we
say: ‘‘I believe that God...has given me...
clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and
home, ... fields, cattle, and all my goods.’’
All our goods come from God. As the Crea-
tor of all things, He is also the Lord of all,
and whatever we have we owe to Him. Now,
however, God does not give to all alike; to
some He gives more, to others less, all accord-
ing to His good pleasure. To Abraham God
gave great riches, but Mary, the mother of

_ our Lord, was poor, and Lazarus had not even

enough to satisfy his hunger. Yet it would be
wrong for us to think that God loved Abra-
ham more than He did Mary and Lazarus.

For all people to he rich would never do,
just as it would not do for all to be poor. It
is necessary that some people have more than
others to carry on this world’s business. And
even if all property in this world would be
equally divided to-day, to-morrow would find
such no longer to be the case, because people
are not equally faithful and diligent, nor en-
dowed with like mental capacities.

But though it is an indisputable fact, that
all that we have is a gift of God, yet He
does not ordinarily give it to us directly. We
should not think that we only have to open
our mouths to have them filled with good food.
Nay, God wants us to work. He that will not
work, shall not eat. He that sows sparingly,
shall also reap sparingly. Then, we must also
save. Only he that takes care of his nickels,
will live to have dollars. To earn five dol-
lars a day and spend them means to have
nothing, while to earn one dollar a day and
save a dime, means that you will in the course

_of time have a snug little sum laid aside for

a rainy day. But, above all, do not forget
to pray. Prayer and work must go hand in
hand. If God’s blessing rest not upon your
work, it will be all in vain.

‘No profit canst thou gain

By self-consuming care;

To Him commend thy cause; His car

Attends the softest prayer.”

If it now be true (and who will dispute
it?), that God is the Giver and Lord of all
our goods, it is equally true that no one has
a right to deprive us of our property but

God: Hence, then, the Seventh Command-

ment: ‘Thou shalt not steal.’’

_ Luther tells us that stealing is to *‘take our
eighbor’s money or goods, or get them by
alse ware or dealing.’” Luther here makes

a distinction between outright taking of what
belongs to our neighbor, and getting what is
his by fraud and deception; yet the latter, as
well as the former, is theft, or stealing.

Luke 10, 30, in the parable of the Good
Samaritan, we are told: ‘*A certain man went
down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell
among thieves, which stripped him of his rai-
ment, and wounded him, and departed, leav-
ing him half dead.’’ Here we have a descrip-
tion of a robbery. Achan, of whom we read
Josh.7, took certain things that were not his;
but he took these things surreptitiously, by
stealth, and not openly and forcibly. This
was a case of theft. The unjust steward
(Luke 16, 1—7) was a thief, and so was Judas
Iscariot (John 12, 6).

But fraud is also theft. If you get pos-
session of your neighbor’s money or goods by
false ware or dealing, you are a thief. The
horse dealer that sells an unsound horse,
claiming it to be sound and well; the mer-
chant that sells poor goods, claiming them to
be first-class; the servant that draws his pay
without doing his work; the employer that
refuses to pay his laborers their hire; the
man that takes advantage of his neighbor’s
financial troubles and compels him to pay in-
terest; the grocer who gives not full weight;
the dry-goods man that gives not full measure;
the seller that overcharges his customer; the
borrower who pays not his debts; in short,
the man who gets his neighbor’s money or
goods under any kind of false pretenses is a
thief.

On all these points God’s Word is very ex-
plicit. ‘‘That no man go beyond and de-
fraud his brother in any matter; because that
the Lord is the avenger of all such,’’ 1 Thess.
4, 6. ‘*Ye shall do no unrighteousness in
judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in
measure,’’ Ley. 19,35. ‘Take thou no usury
of him, or increase; but fear thy God,’’ Lev.
25, 36. ‘‘Woe unto him that buildeth his

house by unrighteousness, and his chambers
by wrong; that useth his neighbor’s service
without wages, and giveth him not for his
work,”’ Jer. 22,13. ‘The wicked borroweth,
and payeth not again,’’ Ps. 37, 11.

2 Thess. 3,10, the apostle writes: ‘‘If any
would not work, neither should he eat.’’ That
means, in plain language, an idle man is a
thief, and every piece of bread he eats, he
steals. No man that can work has the right
to be idle. ‘To be able to work, and yet not
work, is to be guilty of theft. :

In this connection let me also not forget to
say that if you find something and do not en-
deavor to return it to its owner, you transgress
this Commandment. Yes, you may not your-
self steal and yet be a thief, strange though
it may sound to you; namely, if you know
that someone intends to steal and you do not
try to prevent it, or if you help to hide stolen
goods. With respect to this point God’s Word
says: ‘‘Whoso is partner with a thief, hateth
his own soul,’’ Prov. 29, 24. F. J. L.

Christ Our Reconciliation.

The whole Bible is full of this, that we
should not doubt, but be absolutely certain,
that God is merciful, gracious, patient, faith-
ful, and true. He not only will keep His
promises, but already has kept and abun-
dantly done beyond what He promised, since
He has given His own Son for our sins on the
cross, that all who believe on Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.

God sent His only Son into the world and
laid upon Him the sins of all men, saying: Be
Thou Peter, that denier; be Thou Paul, that
persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor;
David, that adulterer; that sinner who ate
the apple in paradise; that thief who hung
upon the cross; and briefly, be Thou the per-
son who hath committed the sins of all men.

Christ is made the law of the law, the sin
of sin, the death of death, that He might re-
deem me from the curse of the law, justify
me, and quicken me. While He is the law,
He is also liberty; while He is sin, He is
righteousness; while He is death, He is life;
for in that He suffered the law to accuse Him,
sin to condemn Him, and death to devour
Him, He abolished the law, He condemned
and He destroyed death, He justified and
saved me.

Whosoever believes and embraces this that
God has given His only Son to die for us poor
sinners, to him it is no longer any doubt, but
the most certain truth, that God reconciled us
to Himself and is favorable and heartily gra-
cious unto us.

Faith, therefore, is a certain steadfast be-
holding, which looks upon nothing else but
Christ, the conqueror of sin and death, and
the giver of righteousness, salvation, and eter-
nal life. —Luther.

An Idol that could not get up out of Bed.

A little lassie from a heathen home had
been for a short time attending a missionary
school. The idols in her home had been re-
gilded.

One day the ‘‘Goddess of Mercy” was miss-
ing from her place. After some searching,
the idol was found in the schoolgirl’s bed.
When asked how it came there, she explained
that she had heard at school that idols were
pieces of wood; so she thought she would
try for herself if this were so, and she took
down the idol to sleep with her in order that
she might see whether it was wise enough to
get up out of bed in the morning when she
'got up.

It was rather clever for a little mite of
eight years of age, at least so her grandfather
thought, and he saved her from the beating
her mother was going to give her. But her
strange act and the reason she gave for it
were the subject of talk in the home, and the

next Sabbath the whole family came to church.
Selected,