Thou Shalt Not Covet

Bill Bright retells the story of “two seriously ill men who occupied the same hospital room. The old man by the window was propped up for an hour each day to drain fluid from his lungs. The younger man spent his entire time on his back. The two men enjoyed each other’s company and talked for hours about all different types of subjects.

During the hour he was propped up in his bed, the older man would describe all the things he saw to his bedfast roommate, just to entertain him. Each day he would give great detail about the activities going on outside. He described the park with its lovely lake and grand old trees. He told of children playing and lovers walking through the park.

One day, a beautiful parade went by. Though he couldn’t hear the music, the man on his back could see it all in his mind as his roommate gave the details. But somehow it didn’t seem quite fair. Although he enjoyed listening to his friend describe the sights, he began to crave the view of his comrade. His desire for the bed by the window consumed him - keeping him awake at night.

Then in the darkness of one sleepless night, his roommate began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs and groping desperately for the button to call for help. The covetous roommate could have pushed his button to summon a nurse, but watched the old man die instead.

The following morning, the nurse discovered the old man’s death and the body was removed. The surviving man then asked that his bed be switched so he could see out the window. At last, he would have what he felt he deserved. Painfully and slowly he struggled to prop himself up for that first look at the park. To his chagrin, the window looked out to a blank wall. The truth was his old roommate had pictured the scenes he described only in his mind. The younger man learned an important lesson: Fulfillment in life is never achieved by the venom of covetousness.”

This leads us to the final command in our study of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:17 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” More on what God meant and how we can overcome the temptation to covet, but first we have a song…

While the tenth commandment makes it clear that it is wrong to covet thy neighbor’s house, the Bible does teach that there are things we should covet:

* Friendship of the faithful (Acts 2:46) And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart…

* Knowledge 2 Peter 3:18 says that we should grow in knowledge.

* Opportunities to serve Galatians 5:13 “…by love serve one another.”

* Opportunities of worship Ps. 122:1 I was glad when they said, Let us go into the house of the LORD.

* Covet Kingdom priorities Matthew 6:33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God…

* Covet God’s righteousness – Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they who hunger and thirst

* Covet earnestly the best gifts (I Corinthians 12:31) Those that lead to edifying the church – the greatest of which is love.

* God’s commendation: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant enter into the joy of thy Lord…” – Matthew 25:21

Christians have much that they can desire, covet or crave, but, as the tenth command received by Moses on the Mount declares, we can also sin by lusting for what does not belong to us. The consequences for coveting are eternal. The Holy Spirit says in I Corinthians 6:9-10 “Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards… shall inherit the kingdom of God. ”

When we covet, we focus on what we don’t have instead of the many blessings that blanket our lives. A cartoon by Leigh Rubin illustrates this tendency. Two giraffes calmly follow two disgruntled elephants out of Noah’s ark. One of the elephants complains, “What a lousy trip…it rained the whole time.” The other responded, “Yeah, and did you notice that foul odor.” So it is, we have the gift of life and eternal life, but focus instead on our troubles.

When we talk about covetousness, we’re talking about a sin of the heart. God does care about what we do. We find in Revelation 20:12 that we’ll be “judged according to our works by the things written in the books.” James 2:24 reads, “by works a man is justified and NOT by faith only.” God also cares about what we say. Jesus says in Matthew 12:36-37 that we will give account for every idle word that we speak. By our words we will be justified and by our words we will be condemned. But God also cares about the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the pure in heart…For they shall see God.” In the same sermon, the Savior says we can commit adultery in our heart. Later, He adds, we must love God with all of our heart. Covetousness is the sin of an ungrateful heart. It is the sin of a heart that does not trust God and does not respect the boundaries that God places in our lives. We can covet our neighbors land, car, spouse, children, education, income, talents, looks, etc. It’s all out of bounds. The bible declares, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” But you won’t hear that from the world. Covetousness kills contentment and makes man miserable. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” You will hear people repeat that, but do our actions show we believe it?

The covetous man or woman just never gets it. In Luke 12:15, Jesus says, “beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” Has this great truth dawned on you yet? That the abundant life is not about what we have, but who we have that matters. It’s not what we have, but what we do with what we’ve been given. It’s not what we know, but what we do with what we know.

The context of this great truth is interesting. Jesus has been preaching great spiritual truths, when someone hollers out from the crowd in Luke 12:13, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!” Jesus answers essentially I don’t want anything to do with it. Then in verse 16, he launches into a parable about a prosperous farmer to bring the point home. Read 18-21

Herein we see the root of covetousness – a preoccupation with self. Jesus commanded, “Love your neighbor as thyself,” but the covetous man really loves only himself. Understand, God never said that money was evil, but rather, in 1 Timothy 6:10 “the love of money is the root of all evil.” In fact, in verse 17 of the same chapter, we are told that God “gives us richly all things to enjoy.” There was nothing sinful in having a barn, two barns or even ten barns. There is no sin even in being rich. In fact, Paul commands wealthy Christians at Ephesus in I Timothy 6:17-18, “…not be haughty nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God…(to) be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.” As far as we know, the rich man never blasphemed God, never profaned the Sabbath, never lied, never stole, never murdered. The only problem we can read about the rich man was that he loved his barns more than he loved God. He loved himself more than he loved God. He loved ease and luxury more than he loved others. He trusted in his riches and was not generous towards God or man. Jesus says in Luke 12:21, “So, is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” The rich man was grasping, selfish and fixated on his possessions. Jesus says, in contrast, that the pure in heart will “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” in Matthew 6:33. The man in the parable was sick. He lost his mind and he lost his soul.

Clovis G. Chappell writes, “When I was a boy I used to feed the hogs. I would carry out a basket that contained at least a hundred ears of corn, and pour it all upon the ground. The supply was ample for the needs of all. But there was almost always one silly hog that would grab an ear and take up the hillside as if running for his life. How stupid! But what was more stupid still was this: another hog would at once turn his back on ninety-nine good ears and pursue his fleeing fellow. This he would do with squeals and whines as pitiful as tears. Being thus covetous, he was wretched in the presence of plenty. What a human hog!” We do behave that way, don’t we?

Think about it! This command, “Thou shalt not covet” intersects all the other commands. Isn’t that what the Holy Spirit meant when He inspired Paul to write, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” The man who does not covet his neighbor’s wife will not commit adultery with her. He who does not covet his neighbor’s possessions will not steal from him; nor will he lie or kill him to take what belongs to him.

Jefferson Davis Tant was three years old when Sherman’s Union soldiers killed his dog and burnt his Georgia home and barns leaving his mother and brothers to sleep under a tree living on boiled wheat for months. When his father returned after the war, he commissioned a lawyer to draw up a new deed for all his property. Instead, the lawyer drew the property up in his own name and sold it out from under the Tant’s leaving them homeless and penniless. The root of the lawyer’s sin was covetousness.

Covetousness in Bible Characters

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had all the good and none of the bad. There was no disease, sickness or pain. They could eat of all of the trees in the garden except one, but that wasn’t good enough. The devil set out to make Eve covet the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He led her to covet the fruit as “pleasant to the eyes” and to covet “being as gods, knowing good and evil.” We suffer the consequences for her greed today.

In I Kings 21, the wicked King Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard. Well, King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, was so wicked she made Ahab seem like an angel. When she found Ahab pouting over Naboth’s refusal to sell his vineyard, Jezebel, told him to cheer up. From there, she rounded up two scoundrels to bear false witness against Naboth as a blasphemer. This led to Naboth being stoned to death. Coveting Naboth’s vineyard led to bearing false witness and murder.

In the Book of Esther, an evil man named Haman had the admiration and adulation of all – all except for a Benjamite Jew named Mordecai. That wasn’t enough for Haman. He coveted Mordecai’s respect. He could not be at peace until every living man and woman bowed before him. So, he set out to kill Mordecai and every other living Jew. He ended up hanging in the gallows he prepared for his enemy. It all began with coveting honor.

Early on, Saul, the first king of Israel, was the finest man in the land according to I Samuel 9. But after David returned from the slaughter of the Philistines in I Samuel 18, the women sang to King Saul, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” From then on King Saul coveted the honor David received. He grew to hate David and repeatedly tried to kill him. Solomon writes in Proverbs 14:30 “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” Envy is nothing less than coveting that belongs to your neighbor. The Christian is told in Romans 12:15 to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those who weep.

David was a man after God’s own heart, but later had heart issues of his own. David’s sin with Bathsheba testifies to the proverb, “Idle hands are a devil’s workshop.” While David walked on his roof, Bathsheba caught his eye. She was married, but He coveted her anyway. He committed adultery with her and murdered her husband Uriah.

Think about all the turmoil, the carnage left behind Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler and more recently, Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, in their insatiable desire to expand their empire or acquire more wealth and power. But world leaders are not the only ones to covet.

Covetousness Today

The world fosters covetousness. It’s always been this way, but it’s getting worse. A 1996 article in the Educational Forum says “The typical consumer is the recipient of 3,000 advertisements daily.” Each ad tells you that you cannot be happy without their product. Laura Schlessinger notes from the same report, “Other surveys have shown that, in 1967, 44% of college freshman believed it was essential to be ‘very well off financially,’ and by 1990 that figure rose to 74%. In contrast, 83% believed it was essential to develop a meaningful philosophy of life in 1967, but by 1990 only 43% did.” But is acquiring wealth really the key to happiness?

Rabbi Steward Vogel speaks of a television interview of instant lottery millionaires. When they were asked, “How many of you are happier today?” no one raised their hand. One of the lottery winners answered, “How many new suits can you buy? How many cars can you drive? Every time you get something nicer, it isn’t good enough, because you see and want something even nicer, it isn’t good enough, because you see and want something even nicer.”

While Satan seduces us to covet through radio, TV, newspaper and magazine ads, another tool he uses is the credit card company. These vultures entice us to buy things we cannot afford. They tempt us to live beyond our means. Then, when we dig ourselves into a hole with debt, they stick us with interest until it seems like there’s no way to crawl out. Solomon describes this situation this way in Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

The twofold cure for covetousness is contentment and caring for others. We would do well to model ourselves after the apostle Paul who said in Philippians 4 “I have learned in whatsoever state I am in therewith to be content.”

We’re commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice. Can you celebrate the success and happiness of others? Paul simplified obeying this command in Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. To love is to demonstrate by action our concern for the welfare of another. If we truly love our brother, our neighbor or even our enemy, we will not covet what belongs to him.

While we're under the new law of Christ, not the old law of Moses, the 10 commandments written by the finger of God lay a moral foundation for His people with relevant applications for the Christian today. Join us in future weeks as we explore their significance for us today.

In a moment, I’ll tell you how you can get a free copy of our today’s lesson. But, before I do, enjoy this song

Close: Thank you for watching our program today. We pray you have heard God speak to you through His word. If you’d like a copy of this sermon, “Thou Shalt Not Covet,” please write me at the address on your screen and we’ll be glad to get it out to you. You may also request a free Bible study course you can complete at home. If that interests you, please let us know. On behalf of the congregations listed shortly, we echo the sentiment of the apostle Paul when he wrote in Romans 16:16, “the churches of Christ salute you.” Until next week, goodbye and God bless!