THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT

     All right, Exodus chapter 20, here we go again. Exodus chapter 20. "By
the law is the knowledge of the sin." "The law is a schoolmaster to bring us
to Christ." Exodus chapter 20.

     Any time a man thinks he's good all he has to do is review the Ten
Commandments, and he sees he's shot all through with holes. There's something
wrong somewhere.

     Exodus 20. Commandment number one. Verse 3: "Thou shalt have no other
gods before me." Commandment number two, verse 4: "Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven
above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the
earth." Commandment number three, verse 7: "Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain." Commandment number 4, verse 8: "Remember the
sabbath day, to keep it holy." Commandment number five, verse 12: "Honour thy
father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD
thy God giveth thee." Commandment number 6: "Thou shalt not kill." Commandment
number seven: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Commandment number eight,
verse 15: "Thou shalt not steal."

     Now, Father, we ask the blessing of God upon the word of God today as it
is read and preached. And I pray you might give thy servant what to say and
how to say it, and anoint my lips of clay, that I may speak the words of truth
in soberness and righteousness from this pulpit. And may, Lord, an eternal
work be wrought in this congregation. Lord, we're so earthbound, so temporal,
so transient. We're here today, and we're gone tomorrow. Lord, we want
something permanent in our lives, and in the lives of our people, done here
today. May the word of God have an effect in our lives and the lives of those
who hear us this day. We pray for the unsaved in our midst, that some of them
are deceived about their goodness, that the law might show them their
condition before God, and their need for a Saviour. We pray it in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen."

     All right, the eighth commandment says, "Thou shalt not steal." What is
stealing? Well, you know some people have an idea that if they haven't robbed
a bank, or robbed a Magic Mart, or held up a grocery store, or robbed a cash
register, they're not thieves. But that isn't true. Basically, a thief is
somebody who takes something without leaving an adequate return. That's what a
thief is. When you take something and don't give an adequate return for what
you take, you're a crook. If you sell a piece of clothing, and that clothing
says, "100% wool," and it's 80% wool, you are 20% thief! That's the truth!

     If a church or a school doesn't give an adequate return for what you put
into it, it's a thief. You pay money to a school to teach you the word of God,
and they don't teach you the word of God, they're crooked! They're stealers!
If you come to a church, and you pay money and put money in that plate to hear
Jesus Christ exalted, and the word of God magnified, and Jesus Christ is not
exalted, and Jesus Christ is not magnified, you're in a house of prayer that
has become a den of thieves!

     A thief takes something and doesn't leave an adequate return. If a thief
came to your house and stole a $20,000 watch and left $20,000, that'd be a
swap. But the trouble is he comes in there and takes something worth $10,000,
$5,000, and doesn't leave $10,000 and $5,000. A thief doesn't leave an
adequate return for what he takes.

     Now, there have been some great thefts in history. The Hope Diamond was
one of the greatest. The Hope Diamond was stolen. It's in the Smithsonian
Institute, and it was stolen by a fellow named Talemner from a Hindu idol,
1642. Talemner was bitten to death by a pack of mad dogs. And from that day to
this, Hollywood has always majored in movies where you steal some relic of
some god, and then a curse follows you all down the line.

     Not every thief gets caught. Louis XVI gave a beautiful necklace to Queen
Marie Antoinette, and somebody stole that necklace, and cut it up into pieces,
distributed it all over the country--nobody ever did find out what happened to
it, and nobody ever caught the thief.

     Hitler stole $25 million worth of art, $700 million worth of gold
bullion, and $850 million worth of jewelry and cash. That is, that money was
taken from countries that he occupied.

     When I was a boy, the crooks were looked upon as almost heroes. We had a
great time keeping up with Public Enemy Number One, and Public Enemy Number
Two. And they were my heroes, I'll be frank with you. My heroes weren't
Christian people. I wouldn't know Billy Sunday from chocolate sundae. I
wouldn't know Bob Jones from Jim Jones or Sam Jones. I don't know who they
were.

     But I knew Dillinger. I knew John Dillinger. I still admire that guy! He
robbed banks. I've always had an appreciation for a fellow who robbed banks--
they're crooked anyway, you know that, don't you? I mean, you put your money
in there, you never see it again! What they got on paper is probably crooked.
I always did like Johnny Dillinger. I always did like Machine Gun Kelly and
Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson and those guys.

     I wish I was as tough as Baby Face Nelson. When the police finally got
him, they shot him six times with .38 revolvers before he fell over. He kept
coming with five bullets in him, man. I mean, body bullets--I mean long chest-
cavity, back, stomach. That's a good man--worth more money!

     And we had Pretty Boy Floyd, and we had Al Capone, and that bunch. Great
robbers. The greatest robbery from a bank was the Berlin Reich bank in 1945,
and they never recovered this money--although I met a fellow one time in
Pensacola who said he knew where it was. He was trying to get me to finance a
bunch to go to Bavaria and dig it up. But in May of '45 the Germans
surrendered, and they came into the Berlin Reich bank--they found $400 million
worth of bonds missing, $26 million of gold and jewels--gone! I mean, $426
million worth of stuff, man! That's a robbery! They never found it.

     January 22, 1976, the Lebanon PLO robbed $50 million from a British bank.
The first movie that was ever made in this country--guess what it was about?
It was called "The Great Train Robbery." The first movie they ever made--you
might have known what it would be. Violence, you know--train robbery.

     Only $700,000 of $6 million dollars recovered from a train robbery in
1963, in Buckinghamshire, England. A mail train was robbed in 1963; they
recovered $700,000 of $6 million bucks. Somebody got off with $5,300,000
pounds of money--a mess of money.

     The biggest thief, of course, is the federal government. And what the
federal government does is, every time it runs out of money, it takes your
money. And secondly, the federal government issues you counterfeit money. For
example, the money you have on you right now is counterfeit. If you have a
quarter, it's not made out of nickel or silver; it's made out of copper. It's
a counterfeit quarter. If you have a dime, you don't have a real dime; you
have a counterfeit dime. If you have a half a dollar, it's not a real half a
dollar; it's counterfeit.

     The Federal Reserve Bank makes counterfeit. I couldn't blame a fellow for
counterfeiting money. I mean, if the government does it, why don't you do it.

     Alfred Nojocks, with an I.Q. of 140, counterfeited $300 million worth of
English pound notes, before they finally caught him.

     You take the money they give you, the dollar they give you is not worth a
dollar. When they give you a dollar bill, it is not worth a hundred copper
cents. Have you noticed lately, at the cash registers where you've been going,
they're saying, "Do you have a penny? Do you have a penny? Have you got any
pennies?" You know what they're trying to do? They're trying to get all the
copper, now, is gone. Trying to get the copper.

     If I were you, I'd save video tokens; they might be worth something some
day. They're made out of aluminum.

     All right, now, there's some things you can steal. First and foremost,
the most obvious is, you can steal money. You can steal money. The biggest
embezzlement ever pulled off in this country was $200 million dollars--
embezzled between 1964 and 1973 by the Equity Funding Corporation, and it was
stolen by computers. Any one computer can steal more money in an hour than ten
men can in five weeks. All you got to do is just change the figures in the
computer.

     You can steal money. Small-time thieves are pickpockets. And the ones
that are good at it can take your money, and you'll never know it's gone.
They'll bump into you in a train station, bump into you in an airport, bump
into you on a crowded bus or a subway, and it's gone. Some of 'em take it from
you while you're asleep at night, take a razor blade and just cut the back end
out of his pocket, and take it out of the back end of the pocket.

     But money is not the only thing you can steal. You can steal time. An
employer can pay you for a 40-hour week, and you don't work a 40-hour work.
When I worked in the NFL Steamship Corporation over there, I noticed every
day, thirty minutes before quittin' time, everybody quit. They'd hang around
the back end of these boats and ships and the bulkhead, hang around these
little rooms, you know, and put up their tools, so as soon as the whistle
blowed, they could all take off like that. They got thirty minutes of their
employers' day every time. They were thieves.

     You can steal people's rights. The French Revolution came up and said,
"We're for the rights of man. We're for human rights. And liberty, equality,
fraternity." And they took all the rights the French people had. They began to
cut off their heads by the carload.

     You can steal people's rights. The greatest act ever passed in the United
States to steal your rights is called the Civil Rights Act. And the Civil
Rights Act in 1964 means, you can't even say who you sell a house to. You
can't even say who you sell a car to, and you can't say who you have in your
motel, and you can't say who you have in your restaurant. As a matter of fact,
if you have the wrong name in your restaurant, you will have to change the
name of your restaurant. You know why? Because you have no civil rights! Your
civil rights are gone. You say, "What happened to them?" They were stolen!

     Years ago in this country, a man could get up and he could talk about the
sins of the Pope, and the sins of the Communists, and the sins of the
Communist radicals like Martin Luther King, Jr. Like Andrew Young. And like
Malcolm X, and that bunch of people--trying to overthrow the government. You
can't talk about those things on the radio any more. You say, "Why not?" They
have what they call the "Fairness Doctrine" over the FCC. In the FCC, if you
get up and name a man and tell what's wrong, he has the right to get up and
get free time after you--which is all right with me, but that isn't what
happens. What happens is, he threatens the radio station, and the radio
station pulls you off the air. That's what happens.

     You say, "When did you lose the right of free speech?" When the Fairness
Doctrine was passed.

     When I was a radio announcer back in 1949, 1948, 1950, every day at 12
o'clock we had one of our roving reporters get out in the street with a
portable unit, a microphone, and stop people at random and ask them questions
about their public opinion about things in those days, and they broadcast
those things live. Twelve to 12:15. After the Korean War, no reporter dared
ask anybody anything, and nobody dared open their mouth. They never have
since.

     Suppose when Kennedy died, a fellow had gone downtown and put out a
microphone and say, "What do you think about Kennedy getting shot?" They
couldn't have dared broadcast it! Not down here they couldn't have!

     I conducted my own little poll one time. I went out there on the street,
right after Kennedy got shot, and said, "What do you think about it?"

     And a Christian woman said, "Well, praise the Lord, it looks like God
give us another chance!"

     Let's see you broadcast that on the Donahue show! Ha ha ha ha! Mike
Wallace, 60 Minutes. He just had been shot, and I asked one guy over here, and
said, "What do you think of that?"

     He said, "Well, I don't know, but if he comes by my place, whoever shot
him can stay at my place."

     I stopped another guy, and he said, "I'm going to go out and get drunk
and celebrate!"

     Let's see you put that on NBC, CBS, and Mutual.

     Listen, you bunch of dumb thumps who spend all your time in front of that
boob tube, 90 percent of what's so you can't even hear! It's all censored.
Fairness Doctrine. Fairness Doctrine.

     Whoever heard of the Pope parading around, eeny meeny miney mo, with a
grapefruit in his head, and fee fo fi fum, and when he got through, putting on
a Bible-believing fundamentalist like me, to give my side!

     You know what they are? They're crooks. They're thieves. They'll steal.

     I was a member of the Freeholders Association here in Escambia County
back around 1950 or 1951, 1960, 1961, 1962, along in there. And they were
trying to put a bill through there to take homestead exemptions from everybody
in this county. Take what you had. They recently put up a law--what is it now,
per house? Homestead exemption? Twenty-five thousand homestead exemption. What
was it? Five thousand? That's pretty good. That same bunch who was behind that
thing here years ago was actually trying to take the whole thing away from
you, make you pay for the whole thing. Representative in Congress. The
representative for Florida is Representative Who? The Senator for Ohio is who?
Senator Crook? Representative Thief. Senator Crook.

     I haven't got anybody in Congress who represents me. Maybe you do. I
haven't got any.

     About the nearest I've heard of is a guy there in Congress called Eugene
Schuyler from the fifth district of Kentucky. He wanted the name Jesus Christ
put in the Bill of Rights, in the Preamble of the Constitution. And he wanted
to pass a law saying that all Congressman take a thirty-percent cut in their
salaries. They got rid of him quick.

     All right, you can steal time. You can steal rights. You can steal goods.
Back a couple of years ago, the big thing was to drive a van up in somebody's
house while they're gone, called 'em on the telephone, the telephone didn't
answer, then drive up the van and fill the thing full and head off with it.

     I was taking Priscilla to the bus station one night here in Pensacola
when she was much younger; I don't how long ago, maybe 12 or 15 years ago. And
I was taking her to the bus station one night, and a policeman pulled up
alongside me. I was just driving one of those vans, Chevrolet vans. He wanted
to check me out. Just because it was kinda late at night. I'd catch a bus late
at night around 12 o'clock. He just wanted to check me out. I said, "Help
yourself."

     I had Fritz in the van. And that Fritz was a hundred-pound black dog,
just as black as the ace of spades, about a hundred pounds--sit almost even
with a dining-room table. And that cop took one look in there and said, "I
guess you're all right!" He didn't open it up to see what was in it or what
wasn't in it.

     Cleveland Police, after the FBI notified them, tried to find a man in 47
states. He was gone for 11 years before they got him, and when they finally
got him, they found he counterfeited $250,000 of five- and ten-dollar bills.
He was a former law student and newspaper reporter. Stealing goods. Stealing
money.

     Stealing credit. You can take credit for something that belongs to
somebody else. Do you take credit for what your wife does? Does your wife take
credit for what you do?

     Somebody said to Luther one time, said, "You're to blame for this! You're
to blame! You get the credit for it, because you're to blame."

     And Luther said, "I'm not to blame at all." He said, "All I did was
preach and teach God's word."

     That's where the credit belongs. Folks say, "Ruckman, Ruckman...."
Ruckman, your foot! I'll tell you what the trouble is; the trouble is this
Book! That's the trouble. If you want credit for tearing things up, you give
credit where it belongs; give credit to the Book.

     I got a letter the other day from a charismatic Catholic, talking about
"sharing his testimony" with the Christian community. He sent me a big poop
sheet thing long about 17 years, what he had been doing, an autobiography, you
know, on how he was seen on television, how he had broadcast, you know, in
Russia, and how he had broadcast in China by shortwave. And he was sending us
a note saying he wanted more of our bulletins to put 'em in the garbage can,
you know. I wrote him back and called him a pipsqueak and a stuffed shirt and
a blank. I got another letter back from him about this long, who called me
about the same thing. And I'm getting his third letter ready now!

     I mean, his name is Gene Neal. Anybody heard of Gene Neal? A Logos
Melodyland fellow. You never heard such a stuffed-shirt in all your life.
That's a fellow who's so full of himself, there isn't any room for the Lord,
man! Taking all the credit. "Why, I do this! And I do that! And I share this!
And I have so many decisions! Oh, they'll be making a movie pretty soon of my
life. And I, I, I..." shut your mouth! I mean, if you have done anything for
God, Jesus Christ gets the credit, not you, not me!

     You can steal the credit. You can steal honor. You can steal honor from
God and glory from God. The Christian scholars do it all the time. Put out new
translations and say, "Due to modern methods and modern research, due to the
latest discoveries"--they're giving credit to themselves!

     The only reason you've got that Book is because God in His mercy let you
keep that Book! If you don't believe that, you go to Austria and Germany and
Spain and Italy, and see some places where God abandoned the people, and they
lost the Book, and God gave 'em up, and you'll find where the credit belongs!
The credit for that Book doesn't belong to one scholar in this country! The
credit belongs to God.

     Stealing honor from God. The Bible says, "I'll not give my honor to
another." The Bible says, "Those that honor me, I'll honor, and those that
lightly esteem me, I'll lightly esteem them." Men steal God's honor from Him.
Take credit for it.

     I saw one of John R. Rice's books one time on the book table up in Fort
Wayne, Indiana, where I was preaching, and it said, "These sermons have won
10,000 people to Christ." I thought to myself, "Yeah, your father's
moustache!" There isn't any sermon anybody ever preached that won 10,000
people to Christ. God may use a sermon. God may bless a sermon. But sermons
don't win people to Christ. It's the Holy Spirit that woos them and convicts
them and wins them. That's something some guy preached, stealing God's honor,
taking credit.

     You see, some of you just thought you weren't crooked. You can steal
property. You can steal property. If you had a dollar for every Southerner
that moved the base plate or moved the base line or moved the stick over,
messed around the surveyor, the place down there at the Town Hall, you'd be
rich.

     You can steal property. I know some dirty, mean, and sorry good-for-
nothing up there in--not Masillon, Ohio--Middletown, Ohio. In Middletown,
Ohio, Brother Sears built a church there, and the people next door waited till
he got the whole thing built, and then called his attention to the fact to his
cornerstone was two feet over their line.  And they knew it was when he
started; they just kept their mouth shut till he got it built, so they could
make him buy their land to get the two feet, and charge him an exorbitant
rate. That's some of that Yankee stuff. Money, money, money, money, money,
money, money!

     Stealing property. You take Whitaker Chambers and Dexter and Alger Hiss
and those fellows. Harry Dexter White. Those fellows at Yalta and Quebec,
after World War II, they gave away the land that belonged to 120 million
people. Gave it--stole the propery. Wasn't their property!

     Churchill sat down with Roosevelt and that bunch with Stalin at Yalta,
and sat down there, and Churchill said, "We'll give you this, and we'll take
that, and you take this, and you can have this, and you can have this"--they
gave away Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Chechoslovakia,
Poland, and Hungary--just gave it away!

     You say, "It wasn't theirs to give away!" You're right. They were
thieves. They stole.

     Right now, the government is trying to steal church property and school
property. The Baptists in Valadofostok, Siberia, put up a Baptist church, and
the workmen tore the building down. Monday morning they asked for another
building, and they said, "No, no, we can't build it. All buildings are needed
for useful purposes." So the Baptists put out their benches in a vacant lot
and held services there. And in one year the government confiscated the lot.
You say, "What do you mean confiscated?" I mean, stole. S-T-O-L-E.

     When a government runs out of money, all it can do is steal.

     Now, what causes stealing? What causes stealing? Well, three things
mainly. First of all, laziness. "The drunkard and the glutton shall come to
want, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." You'll run out of money if
you don't work, young fellow. You'll run out of money if you don't work, young
fellow. And, young fellow, if you don't have a broken back or some physical
disability, you better work. And if you don't, you won't have enough money to
live like you want to live.

     Folks are lazy. I'll grant you unemployment's the cause of stealing. If a
fellow runs out of money; if he doesn't want to starve, he'll steal something.
But that's the exception, not the rule.

     When it was a blackout in New York, the stores that were broken into were
not food stores. They were television stores. Somebody thought more of
television than they did a loaf of bread.

     Now, if you're too lazy to support your wife, steal somebody else's. If
you're too lazy to build your own work, steal somebody else's church members.
That's people are about it. They're too lazy to do anything, so they live off
somebody else.

     Down South, we use to have a song that went like this. I haven't heard
this song in thirty years:

     Some folks say that they won't steal.

     Way down, way down,

     Way down yonder in the corn fields.

     But I caught some in my corn field,

     Way down, way down,

     Way down yonder in the corn fields.

     Now, one had a shovel and the other had a hoe,

     Way down, way down,

     Way down yonder in the corn fields.

     Now, if that ain't stealin' then I don't know,

     Well, you have to be a farmer to get that one! That one's funny, you
know.

     You see, the idea see, they wouldn't be having a shovel and a hoe, unless
they were stealin', see, that's the idea. You have to think about that. That's
real deep.

     But you take folks that mess around and do nothing. Pretty soon they'll
be out of money. I don't envy you folks, I don't see how in the world you
folks make two or three hundred dollars' house payments in a month--I really
don't.

     I hear kids say, "I'm laid off work. I don't have any job this month." I
don't know how you survive, not working in a month. I mean, you work a month,
miss a month's work, that's four paychecks--I don't know how you even float.
I've seen 'em do it, but I don't know how you do it.

     What causes stealing? Laziness. Not working. What causes stealing? Debt.
Debt. You get in debt, and you have to steal.

     Some of the largest Christian works in this country, they have to be
crooked. They have to lie. They have to say "is" when they mean "was." They
couldn't pay their bills if they didn't! If they didn't trick the kid to come
in there, they'd lose their enrollment. If they didn't trick the fellow into
joining the church, they couldn't pay for the building. They've got to steal.
They've got to steal, because they're in debt.

     I saw a cartoon one time by a fellow named Shaddock, or E.J. Pace, I
forget which. Maybe Pace drew it for one of Shaddock's books. But it shows
some steps goin' down like this, and there's a fellow sittin' on the bottom
step looking into a big black hole, and the steps down, the first step says,
"Debt." And the next step says, "Lying." And the next step says, "Stealing."
And the next step says, "Killing." And the fellow on the bottom's lookin' out
into hell, and he says, "I won't go another step!"

     Yeah, you'll go all the way if you start!

     How does that thing start? That thing starts with "debt." You get in over
your head. Some of you come down to school here, you're under a load of debt
all the time you're here. Some of you can't even get the work to get your
bills paid off. Some of you are letting this old charge card business; that's
how you're raised. You live that way. And the first thing you know, when you
come down here, you got $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000--no way in the world to
get out. Got to go back up North in the summer to work, and don't make enough
money in the summer to pay the thing off, and come back under it again.

     Somebody led you wrong. Now, listen, if God Almighty put you in debt
through some of you can't help, God will take care of it, if you're not
stingy, you're not lazy. But don't go around asking for it. Don't go out
borrowing money to pay off money you borrowed. Can't you figure that thing
out? When you borrow it, you pay interest to pay off what you borrowed with
interest, and the interest just keeps goin' up.

     Gettin' awful quiet in here, preacher!

     I'll tell you something else that causes stealing. Necessity. I mean, you
get right down to it, you don't have any job, you're broke, and your family's
starvin' and you're starvin', you'll probably take some money. You take the
American government--it's a thief. It's the biggest thief in the world. It
doesn't have any money! Whenever a government runs out of money--you got to
have money to keep those roads out there. You got to have money to pay all
those bureaucrats. You got to have money for this. You got to have money for
that. How can a government get money? What's a government? A government's
isn't anything; a government can't work. People in the government can work,
but a government can't work. A government is an intangible kind of thing. And
if a government needs money, they'll just take it.

     I read in the Bible where if a man steals, he'll have to pay the thing
back. And even though folks may forgive him, he'll have to pay back what he
stole--fourfold. A fellow runs out of money and steals to get his food. But
that's the exception--not the rule.

     Let me give you a good one. "Will a man rob God?" That's a good one.
"Will a man steal from God?" Like the government steals from you? "Will a man
rob God?" I've had some brethren in the ministry, whose payment, the interest
payment, is a thousand dollars a day. I have some good friends in the ministry
who, the payment interest on the loan, is a thousand bucks a day. I don't
intend by the grace of God to ever get in a mess like that. I don't want to
get up here in this pulpit and just be filled with "Money, money, money,
money, money" when I get up here. I look at your faces; I don't want to sit up
here and just whine about I need. Your need is greater than mine.

     You know why these fellows come back from overseas so many, and shoot
people up and steal and mug and rape and kill, and that kind of stuff? Well, a
lot of them are trying to get enough money to take care of a drug habit they
got overseas. There's a great book written by two fellows called Weston and
Shaffer called Heroin and Heroes, and it says this. It says, "The first
connection with drugs for America was the black troops in Vietnam called Soul
Brothers. Captain Brian Joseph explains drugs is necessary to a Harlem
population. In 1965, there was a change in the type of troops the Marines were
getting." When was the Civil Rights Act? 1964. "In Vietnam in 1968, the
enlisted men were threatening officers who tried to stop the dope. The
government would back them up"--back up the troops. The officers were fried by
their own troops for arresting men who had opium. Sergeant Parkinson of the
Army Rehabilitation Center said the Army spent $4,000,000 for rehabilitation
centers for dopeheads. Fort Bragg and Fort Hood are loaded with drugs. Many
did not return to action because they were on dope. Twenty-five percent of
those in Vietnam were on drugs in action, sometimes 90 percent of the time.
The drugs in Philadelphia came from the Negroes," page 103. "They got hooked
in Vietnam," page 112. "They reenlisted to get more dope," page 115.

     So 30 percent of the Army is now Negroes trying to get drugs. It cannot
be enforced because they got to go by what the newspapers say. Captain Brian
Joseph, psychology teacher of rehabilitation, said, "Ninety-five percent of
Vietnam veterans who were on it are now stealing, burglarizing, or in armed
robberies, because they're in the drug habit, not just because they learned
violence, but because they've got to support the habit they have." You gonna
have some marijuana, it's gonna cost you some money, boy. They're gonna take
it out. You know what some of you have to do before you get through with
foolin' around with those drugs? You're gonna have to steal. You're gonna have
to break and enter and get something and hock it.

     Take some old lady out there in Cordova Mall, University Mall, and take
her pocketbook from her. You'll have to do it. You can't support a habit a
hundred dollars a day, just working in a factory. You can't support one fifty
dollars a day. You can't even support one twenty dollars a day. You'll have to
steal.

     All right, now, I want to have us look in closing at some famous Bible
thieves. There are some famous Bible thieves in the word of God, people that
steal. The first of these is Absalom. Absalom didn't steal money. He didn't
steal property. He didn't steal clothes. The Bible said he stole the hearts.
He stole the hearts of the men of Israel. He flattered them. Made them feel
sorry for themselves. Appeal to the self-pity--got in close, got in their good
side, got them to rally around them. He's a thief. He's a thief.

     Ahab took property that didn't belong to him. He got a little vineyard
over there he wanted, and couldn't get the thing. So one day he just stole it.
His wife forged signatures on papers, and murdered the guy and took his land.

     There's Gehazi. Gehazi stole clothes. And I'll tell you something; he
never broke, he never entered, he didn't do one thing contrary to the 8th
commandment. But he was a thief. And Elisha cured Naaman, and Naaman started
to walk off, Naaman said, "Let me give you a reward, let me help you out."
Elisha said, "No, God's gonna take care of me." And he got off there about 10
miles, and Gehazi went after him, and said, "Were you gonna offer my master a
reward?"

     "Yes."

     "Well, I'll take it back to him." And Naaman gave Gehazi the stuff. And
Gehazi came back, and as he walked to the house, Elisha said, "Where you
been?"

     "I haven't been anywhere."

     "I know where you been. My heart went with you when you went. You went to
that fellow and collected that stuff and came back, and you got it on you
right now. You gonna be a leper until the day you die."

     You know what he did? He stole. You say, "How did he steal?" He went up
and asked a fellow for something the fellow was willing to give. Stole it. A
thief.

     There's Achan. Achan stole money. Why, Achan stole a wedge of gold
shekels and silver. He stole a Babylonish garment--legitimate stuff. I mean,
spoils of war. What's wrong with legitimate spoils of war? You kill a guy in
combat, can't you take his loot, or can't you take his wristwatch? He sure
would've taken yours. Why not take 'em? He's a dead man, ain't gonna use it
anyway, is he? What, you gonna leave him there and let somebody else get it?
He just about shot you, not the other fellow. Legitimate spoil.

     But it wasn't for Achan, because God said in that fight, "All the spoil
belongs to me." You know what Achan did?  Ummmm-mmmmm. He kept something for
himself that was God's. Now, if God hadn't said that, he'd a been all right.
But God said, "All that stuff belongs to me, and me only." He took part of it
for himself. Thief.

     There's Judas. Bible said he was a thief and held the bag. Judas was a
thief. A poor, old, ignorant fellow these days steals a railroad car, or
something out of a railroad car, and folks call him a thief. If he was an
educated man, he could steal the whole railroad, and they'll make him a
commissioner, make him a governor, or something. But it's stealing, not matter
what you do with it.

     All you read about Judas was, he was a thief and held the bag. You never
read what he stole. You never read about Judas taking money out of that bag.
You just read that he said, "Feed the poor with it," and, "This he said not
because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and held the bag,
and what was therein."

     All right, finally. And this is perhaps the greatest thief in all the
world. This is Jesus Christ. The greatest thief is Jesus Christ. Didn't you
ever read, "Behold, I come as a thief in the night?" A fellow said, "Well, He
comes as a thief, but he's not a thief." Well, I'm not too sure about that.
You know something? The night He was arrested, you know what He said to them?
He said, "Do you come out against me as thieves?" And they crucified Him; you
know where He was crucified with? He was crucified between two thieves.

     I think the Lord has a sense of humor. And I think the Lord said, "OK, if
you classify me as a thief and arrest me as a thief, and hang me as a thief,
I'll come as a thief." And He said, "I come as a thief in the night." You know
He steals? He steals the most valuable thing in the whole house! And one of
these days the Lord Jesus Christ is gonna come this atmosphere, and enter this
ionisphere and stratosphere, and He's gonna come as a thief in the night, and
BAM! everything that's good here is gonna go. He's gonna take the goods.

     Boy, you think this world is a hellhole now, you wait till all the
Christians leave! You think your high school is a hellhole right now--and it
is; it's a dirty, filthy hellhole, if you ever saw one, any one of 'em you're
in--you wait till all the Christians leave that place!

     "Behold I come as a thief in the night." To take the most valuable thing
out of the house. Are you ready? Are you ready?

     I'm stolen goods! Ha ha! I'm part of the Lord's property! You say, "Who'd
He steal it from?" FROM THE DEVIL! You say, "Who'd it belong to?" It belonged
to the devil! And a thief entered the house and stole it!

     Over there in Strasberg, Germany, there's a big town hall clock downtown,
and across that clock, it says in German, "In one of these hours, He's
coming." Maybe we ought to put that over that clock--that would be a good one
to put by that clock back there. "In one of these hours, He's coming."

     Years ago, in Hannuck, Germany, back in the days of the Pietists and the
Moravians, they had a town watch. And, to this day, they call the policeman
the "watchmeister"--the watch master. And he walks around the town at night,
and he's supposed to toll the bell every hour, you know. And over there in
Hanuck, Germany, at the time of the Moravians and Pietists, when that fellow
would walk around the town at night, he'd recite this, on the hour. And he'd
go around and say this: "Ye brethren, hear the midnight clock is humming. At
midnight our great Bridegroom will be coming."

     How 'about putting that on every radio station at the sign off--at 12
o'clock?

     At one o'clock he'd go down the street and ring that bell, "Past one
o'clock, the day breaks out of darkness, Morning Star appear and break our
hardness." Two o'clock, ring the bell, walk down the street: "'Tis Two, Won't
Jesus Wait the Silent Season, Ye Two So Near Related, Will and Reason."

     You see, back in those days, the unsaved people were more pious than the
saved people are now. Three o'clock: "The clock is three. The Blessed Three
doth merit the best of praise from body, soul, and spirit." Four o'clock, walk
the town, ring the bell: "'Tis Four O'clock. When three make supplication, the
Lord will be the fourth on that occasion." "Five is the Clock. Five virgins
were discarded, when five with garments were rewarded." "The clock is six. Six
in the morning--morning watch. The clock is six. I go off my station. Now,
brethren, watch yourselves, for your Salvation."

     He's coming! When He comes, He'll come in the morning watch, and catch
out the most valuable thing in the house.

     All right, let's stand. Let's stand. Let's stand and let's sing, "Where
He Leads Me, I Will Follow." Where He leads me, I will follow. I can hear my
Saviour calling, where He leads me, I will follow." And this morning, I want
to give an invitation. I don't often do this, but we have a lot of new folks
with us today. I want to give an invitation this morning for anybody who'd
like to become a member of the Bible Baptist Church here in Pensacola, to come
on the invitation. And we'll have a secretary and recorder down here waiting
for you if you're saved. And if you've come to join the church, I do want to
have you tell the person you've come to that you're saved, have been saved and
are baptized. We don't want to take you if you're not saved. We don't take
unsaved church members.

     And so, if you come this morning, why, we want you to come ready to tell
whoever you talk to where you were saved, and when you're saved. Amen? Amen.
And we'd be glad to have you if you want to have fellowship with us.

     Now we have folks sometimes hang around here a couple of yours, and not
join the church. And it doesn't hurt our feelings a bit. Doesn't hurt our
feelings a bit. If you don't want to join with us, OK. And if you want to,
we'd be glad to have you. And if you join this outfit, you're gonna get the
mark of the beast on you--with a lot of the brethren. Won't hurt you in
Heaven. It won't hurt you in Heaven. As far as I know, there's nobody up there
lookin' down right now and saying, "As soon as he goes down the aisle, scratch
him off the list!" But that's up to you. It's your decision. What number is
that? 384? 384 in the hymnal--384. 384. All right, let's sing it out now.

     Now, while these are coming, many of them coming here this morning, maybe
you're here today, and maybe you've never been saved. Maybe you're not a
Christian. I don't want to cut you out of the invitation. We're talking about
church membership right now. But if anybody would like to come this morning
and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, there will be people down here in front
who'll kneel with you and have prayer with you and be with you. And I've
talked to you this morning about stealing things. Maybe you think you're
exempt, you know. And it isn't you. But you be honest with yourself this
morning, and think about all the time that you've taken for yourself that
belonged to God, all the money you spent on yourself, some of it which
belonged to God, and all the thoughts you had, that you could have thought
about God. I think you'll find there's some crookedness there.

     But, you know, if God gave you your body, your body belongs to God?
Haven't you ever used it for yourself? God gave you breath and air and your
life. You know what you are? You're a renter. You don't own the property. It
belongs to God.

     I haven't talked to you about tithing this morning, but I'm gonna talk to
you about it in a couple of weeks. We got on the tenth commandment, where it
talks about "Thou shalt not covet," we're gonna get into some things.

     But this morning, if you've taken for yourself what belongs to God, you
come this morning and give God back what belongs to Him. You accept His Son as
your Saviour, accept His Son as your Saviour, take the rest of what you've got
and give it back to the Owner. Let's sing the third stanza.



