We take people who are hurting, angry, confused, or offended, and instead of leading them toward Christ, we lead them deeper into themselves. We teach them to linger over evil. We nurse the wound. We baptize the grudge. We turn the complaint into a cause. We make rebellion sound like wisdom. And God calls it theft.

“You shall not steal.” — Exodus 20:15

There is a kind of theft no lock can prevent. It does not break a window. It does not pry open a door. It does not empty the cash drawer, steal the ox, forge the deed, or carry silver out under cover of night. It leaves the house exactly as it found it and walks away carrying the one thing no man can place in a vault. The heart.

The Eighth Commandment says, “You shall not steal.” In Hebrew, it is blunt, bare, and thunderous: no stealing. God forbids us from taking what does not belong to us. But the commandment reaches far deeper than property. It condemns every unlawful taking, every form of robbery, every subtle act by which we seize what God has assigned to another.

And one of the most dangerous forms of theft is the stealing of hearts.

Second Samuel gives us one of the clearest pictures of this kind of robbery. Before the sun was high over Jerusalem, Absalom was already standing at the gate. His appearance was impressive. His chariot gleamed. His presence was calculated. He had fifty men running before him, because a man who intends to steal a crown usually begins by acting as though he already wears one.

The gate was where grievances were heard. It was where wounded men came hoping for justice. A farmer arrived with a complaint. Another man came with some dispute that had been burning in his chest for days. These were not merely legal cases. These were men with heavy hearts. And Absalom knew it.

He did what thieves often do best. He appeared compassionate. He stepped down. He asked where the man was from. He listened carefully. He drew him near. For a moment, that wounded man felt seen. Someone important was paying attention. Someone noble was taking his side.

Then Absalom slid the knife in.

“See, your claims are good and right,” he said, “but no man listens to you on the part of the king.” In other words: David does not care about you. Your cause is just, but the king is indifferent. You have been forgotten. You have been neglected. If only I were judge in the land, then every man with a grievance could come to me, and I would give him justice.

That is how rebellion often begins. Not with an army, but with sympathy twisted into sedition. Not with a sword, but with a whisper. The text tells us plainly what Absalom was doing: “So Absalom stole away the hearts of the men of Israel” (2 Samuel 15:6). That is theft.

Absalom stole the proper loyalty, affection, submission, and trust that Israel owed to David. He did not begin by attacking David in the open field. He began by poisoning the people’s affections. He took wounded men and turned their pain into rebellion. He took legitimate grievances and used them as tools of ambition.

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