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We Shall Not Steal, February 26
Thou shalt not steal.
Exodus 20:15
.
Both public and private sins are included in this prohibition. The eighth
commandment condemns man-stealing and slave-dealing, and forbids wars
of conquest. It condemns theft and robbery. It demands strict integrity in
the minutest details of the affairs of life. It forbids overreaching in trade,
and requires the payment of just debts or wages. It declares that every
attempt to advantage one’s self by the ignorance, weakness, or misfortune
of another, is registered as fraud in the books of heaven
The eighth commandment is to barricade the soul, and hedge man
in, so that he shall make no injurious encroachment—which his self-love
and desire for gain would make on his neighbor’s rights. It forbids every
species of dishonesty, injustice, or fraud, however prevalent, however
palliated by plausible pretenses
“Thou shalt not steal” was written by the finger of God upon the tables
of stone, yet how much underhand stealing of affections is practiced and
excused. A deceptive courtship is maintained, private communications are
kept up, until the affections of one who is inexperienced and knows not
whereunto these things may grow, are in a measure withdrawn from her
parents and placed upon him who shows by the very course he pursues
that he is unworthy of her love. The Bible condemns every species of
dishonesty
To trifle with hearts is a crime of no small magnitude in the sight of a
holy God
As we deal with our fellow men in petty dishonesty or in more daring
fraud, so will we deal with God. Men who persist in a course of dishonesty
will carry out their principles until they cheat their own souls and lose
heaven and eternal life
So long as heaven and earth continue, the holy principles of God’s law
will ... continue, a source of blessing, sending forth streams to refresh the
earth
[64]
75
Patriarchs and Prophets, 309
.
76
Letter 15, 1895
.
77
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 102
.
78
The Adventist Home, 57
.
79
The Adventist Home, 392
.
80
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 80
.
63