Let Him That Stole Steal No More

Psalms 11:7, “For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.” Psalms 33:5, “He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” Ephesians 4:28, “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

I pondered our text passage today, thinking about how good our forgiving God is. Psalms 11:7 proclaims that the one true and living God is a RIGHTEOUS GOD, and He LOVETH RIGHTEOUSNESS. That is a common fruit of the Spirit in every child of God, loving righteousness. That is why sinful Lot, who deliberately moved his family to the wicked city of Sodom, cringed in his soul when he saw the sins of the heathen around him. 

2nd Peter 2:6-8, “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;).” 

The Apostle Peter tells us, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, that Lot was a just man. That means Lot was a saved person, a redeemed child of God. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. Peter also tells us that Lord, as a just man, was vexed in his soul by the unlawful deeds of the ungodly which he saw committed around him. By “unlawful” I believe the Bible means unlawful by God's standards. This is interesting, because the law of Moses hadn't been given to mankind yet, not for another 500 years! Historians estimate that Sodom was destroyed about 1,900 BC.

As I was researching today, I was saddened to read on the Britannica Encyclopedia website that Sodom was likely destroyed by an earthquake. No, the Bible says that God destroyed Sodom by raining down literal fire and brimstone (molten lava). It is tragic that the unbelieving world has no faith in the inspired Word of God. But one day they will, ONE DAY THEY WILL!!!

Psalms 11:7 proclaims that the one true and living God is a RIGHTEOUS GOD, and He LOVETH RIGHTEOUSNESS. In another of our text passages from Ephesians 4:28, the Bible says: “Let him that stole steal no more.” I love that! God is giving sinners a second chance to do the right thing. We cannot undo the wrongs that we have already done. We can (and should) attempt to make restoration and restitution with any victims there may be.

I have been watching “Court TV.” It is an interesting show that follows present court trials in real time. I heard any interesting phrase today. Someone said that when a person commits a crime, they “owe a debt to society.” In other words, when one person is hurt, the whole community rallies together in defense of that one victim to defend them. That is why when you are indicted for a crime, the legal complaint against you will read: “THE STATE OF ______ vs. YOUR NAME.” If it is a Federal Crime it will read: “THE UNITED STATES OF AMEFICA vs. YOUR NAME.” And so forth.

Any time that we harm or hurt someone, causing them monetary loss or bodily or emotional harm, there is an imbalance of justice. Pastor Jack Hyles used to say in his sermons: “Everybody deserves justice, whether they be 3 years old or 90!” Amen and amen! That is 100% biblical. Everybody deserves justice! Throughout the Bible God showed mercy toward sinners. 

Consider John 5:14, “Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” This dear man had been sick and crippled for 38 years. There was a local pool of water, which some of the people believed had magic healing power. That is superstition. We see this kind of superstition on The 700 Club, believing that people can be healed through the television by the words of the con artists and Pat Robertson. They are criminals and should be prosecuted by the government for fraud. The 700 Club bilk viewers out of $670,000,000 per year!

My personal opinion is that Pat Robertson is a deep occult operative of the New World Order, and most of that money goes to help further the NWO. That is why the government allows these dishonest criminals to continue taking advantage of naïve and simple Americans. I wish the government would medically verify all claims of healing, and then arrest and convict Pat Robertson for blatant fraud. People are amazingly foolish and gullible. There are scams galore online today, which make empty promises of healing, losing weight, making your bald hair regrow, financial success, et cetera, and they are ALL SCAMS!!! Why doesn't our government investigate and stop this type of gimmicks and dishonestly. These scams easily generate HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars each year!

There are no magical healing pools, although there may be some health benefits to mineral springs and heated vents of water from inside the earth, which heat surface springs of water. This suffering man in John 5:1-14 tried to crawl to the water for years, likely hundreds of times, but someone else got there first. That reminds me of nearly everything in society today. If you want to buy an affordable home, someone will get there before you. If you want to marry a good person, someone beat you to the wedding altar. I have found that so often in life I ended up a dollar short and a day late. That is life. 

I think that is why the Bible tells us in 1st Timothy 6:6-8 to be “content” with what we already have. There are two ways to become rich. One way is to try to get all you want, which likely will never happen. The other way, and anybody can do this, is to be content with what you presently have. If you have all you want already, then you are rich! Being rich is a mindset. The poorest man in the world, or the criminal serving a life sentence in prison, is richer than the wealthiest man on earth if they are a redeemed child of God. When life is over and those poor and imprisoned people die, they will be in Heaven with Jesus forever, enjoying eternal life. But the rich people (like Steve Jobs, founder of Apple computer, who died with a net worth of $10,200,000) will all burn in Hell forever and ever without hope or rest (Revelation 14:11).

I am also reminded of the beautiful true story of Jesus and the woman caught in the very act of adultery. John 8:11, “She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Just like the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:28, Jesus told her to “GO, AND SIN NO MORE.” Paul said, “Let him that stole steal no more.” A lady recently asked me how she can know the difference between guilty verses Holy Spirit conviction. The answer is easy. The Holy Spirit always convicts us about present sin, or past sins that we haven't made right yet. But if you have confessed past sins to God (1st John 1:9), and made every attempt to make restitution (apologizing) and restoration (pay back any damages) to any victims, then it is forgiven and forgotten by God. Psalms 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

Now, we must make an important distinction between one's POSITION in Christ versus one's CONDITION in Christ. The psalmist David is speaking about God's imputed righteousness, which comes by faith alone (Romans 4:4-7). When a person accepts Jesus as their personal Savior (receiving Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for their sins, believing that He resurrected from the dead after three days), that person is JUSTIFIED in God's sight, JUST-IF-I'D never sinned at all. But not only that, God attributes Christ's total righteous to our record, so that God sees us as perfect and sinless as Jesus (2nd Corinthians 5:21; Romans 4:5-6; Philippians 3:9; Romans 10:3-4). Whew that's beautiful!!!

Dear reader, our wonderful God is a  a RIGHTEOUS GOD, and He absolutely LOVETH RIGHTEOUSNESS. As a child of God I also love righteousness. Since I am still in the flesh, I could never love righteousness like God does. Nor could I even grasp God's mindset toward sin. That is why so many unsaved people, and even some saved people, have a hard time accepting the Bible truth that all mankind deserves to suffer and burn in an eternal Hell (Revelation 20:11-15). Such doubting people are errant in their thinking, judging God by human standards and thinking.

We all deserve to burn in the fires and brimstone of Hell for ever because of our own sins. Even one sin makes us guilty of ALL the Bible says (James 2:10). That is because committing even one sin makes a person filthy, guilty and unfit to enter into the Kingdom of God (1st Corinthians 6:9-10). But thank God for the precious blood of Jesus that “WASHED US” FROM ALL SINS (1st Corinthians 6:11; 1st Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 1:5). The Christian believer is JUSTIFIED FROM ALL THINGS (Acts 13:39). When a believer sins, we fall IN GRACE, never FROM GRACE. The more that we continue to live in sin, the MORE GRACE DOTH ABOUND (Romans 5:20). That is because eternal life and forgiveness of sin is a FREE GIFT from God (Romans 5:15-18; 6:23), not based upon our turning away from sin or human reformation.

I don't know about you dear friend, but as a child of God I don't want to sin anymore! I know that I will, because we are ALL sinners by nature and by choice (Romans 5:12; Romans 7:14-25; 1st John 1:8-10). These false teachers today who say that the Christian only has the new nature, and that the old nature is gone, are WRONG! As long as we are in the sinful flesh, we will STRUGGLE between the leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the sinful flesh. The Bible teaches that there is NO GOOD THING in the flesh. Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” The flesh is one of our three lifelong enemies! Our three arch enemies are: the Devil, the world and the flesh! Of those three, the flesh is the worst to cope with, because we aren't always around the world, and we'll likely never meet the Devil personally, but we live with the flesh 100% of the time.

I love our forgiving God. The Bible says we love God because He first loved us (1st John 3:16). The Bible says that Jesus died on the cross for murderers, rapists, pedophiles and the worst of humanity, even those who behave worse than animals toward others! Romans 5:6-9 teaches that CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY. That is why I am so sick and tired of this “Lordship” salvation heresy that is sop popular in churches today. You CANNOT buy your way into Heaven! You don't have to pray, confess Christ publicly, turn away from your sinful ways, join a church, get dunked in a baptistry, nor anything else to get to Heaven, you simply need to BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. Acts 16:30b-31, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” The phrase “and thy house” is simply an extended invitation of salvation to the man's entire family, if they also will simply BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!!!

I heard a foolish preacher once debate with me on the intended meaning of Acts 16:30-31. He said that the Roman soldier was afraid of losing his life, because the prisoners were escaping. The preacher claimed that the Roman solider didn't want  get saved from the penalty of sin in Hell; but rather, he wanted to be saved from certain death from his superiors when they learned that the prisoners were all gone. I humbly disagree with with that preacher. That little phrase “and thy house” clearly proves him wrong. If the prisoners all escaped, the soldier's family wouldn't all be killed. The fact that an invitation is extended to the man's entire family evidences that these verses apply to salvation. That Roman soldier heard Paul and Silas singing hymns in the prison, joyful in the Lord. That soldier experienced the same earthquake that the prisoners did, seeing the power of God.

Our omnipotent (all-powerful) God is a very good God. He is a great and forgiving God. He LOVES RIGHTEOUSNESS!!! Psalms 33:5, “He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” There has been massive INJUSTICE in the United States. The 911 attacks in New York on the World Trade Center (WTC) were a blatant INSIDE JOB, which was used as a pretext to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and to raise up a POLICE STATE in the United States, which is continuing. I humbly believe Global Warming is a hoax! Over 99% of the earth is open ocean and land. I am convinced that Climate Control, just like the LGBTQ Rights Movement, is intended to control people. The coming sinister New World Order will be all about CONTROLLING everybody. How else could the Devil require everyone to receive a mark or else you cannot buy or sell? These restrictive devices and oppressive government policies are all happening before our very eyes.

I am firmly convinced that somehow the COVID-19 crisis will be used to further the same agendas that were created after the 911 attacks. Rudy Dent is a 32-year retired NYFD fire investigator, who said 911 was an INSIDE JOB. The Bush Administration didn't get away with it, they got caught red-handed. The corrupt and evil criminals working within the highest ranks of our U.S. government were just never brought to justice, because Freemasons control our country and the U.S. Justice Department refused to prosecute the true culprits behind 911.

Dear saints of God, our God is a RIGHTEOUS GOD who LOVETH RIGHTEOUSNESS. If you want to please God, you and I cannot do so in the flesh, we must walk in the indwelling Holy Spirit, in obedience to God's Word (2nd Corinthians 10:5-6). If you've ruined your life with sinning, then GO AND SIN NO MORE as the Savior told the adulterous woman. If you've been a thief who wrongly steals what you did not honestly labor for with your own mind and hands, then STEAL NO MORE as the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:28. If you've fornicated and lived a shameful life of impurity and lust, then STOP IT. If you love Jesus more than your sins, YOU WILL KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS (John 14:15; 15:14). It is a matter of your personal priorities! Do you love sin more than Jesus, Who died on the cross for pay for those horrible sins? Whom do you love? Psalms 11:7, “For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.”