If we're honest, many of us are driven by a desire for MORE.
Everywhere we turn, we're enticed to want the new and improved, or the latest version. But the tenth commandment warns us against coveting. And today on Truth for Life, we're going to learn how to recognize when healthy admiration becomes sinful covetousness.
Here's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled, The Other Man's Grass. Father I pray now that you will take our minds and free us from all distraction and help us to think clearly through them. That you will take my words and help me to speak wisely and effectively with them. You will take our hearts and open them up to your truth and set them on fire with love for Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen. If you would take your Bible and turn to Exodus chapter 20 and the 17th verse, you'll find yourself at the tenth commandment, and a number of people have written to say that they wish there were more commandments so that we could keep going.
I personally am having a bad enough time with the ten that I'm glad there are no more commandments, but certainly we recognize the appreciation for the Word of God, its liveliness, and its effectiveness, and we rejoice in that—all of us do. The tenth commandment, in verse 17 of Exodus 20, reads as follows, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, Or his manservant or maidservant, His ox or donkey, Or anything that belongs to your neighbor. His wife couldn't make very much of this individual. He had come home, and he was obviously in a really bad mood. He did not want to eat his dinner and went immediately to his bed.
His wife clearly understood that the problem was not with her, nor was it with any other member of the family. The gentleman had been involved in a business negotiation which had gone bad on him. He had wanted to secure a piece of property adjacent to his own. And although he himself had plenty of property, the other man's grasp was looking an awful lot more greener than his, and he determined that he would seek to gain control over this piece of his neighbor's property. The man who owned the property would accept neither cash nor barter for it, and consequently the individual found himself at home and in his bed, and he was disgusted and he was annoyed. His problem was that he had a covetous heart. Now his wife might have been a help to him if she had endeavored to talk him out of it, but instead her sin compounded his. She told him not to worry, she would make a way for him to get that property, and she arranged at a special function for this individual to be confronted by slander and by infamy, so much so that he lost not only the title to the property but lost also his life.
Now the story is so common that we might anticipate it coming from our newspaper as of the last couple of days, but in actual fact it comes from the twenty-first chapter of 1 Kings, and it is the account of Ahab and Naboth and the reaction of one to the splendor of the other person's vineyard. Just as there is a clear distinction between a healthy appetite and gluttony, so there is all the difference in the world between appreciating what somebody else has, what belongs to another person, and coveting those belongings. And the tenth commandment confronts us with a problem which, if we are very honest, all of us need to admit is something with which we wrestle. The tenth commandment forbids wrong attitudes towards the possessions and position which other people hold. The tenth commandment teaches us to be content with what God has given us. The Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes the instruction of the tenth commandment as follows.
The tenth commandment requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor and all that is his, and forbideth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his. As we've gone through what we've referred to as these guidelines for freedom, we've been confronted by the amazing and direct applicability of each one to our lives, and nowhere perhaps more so than in this whole issue of genuine satisfaction or the nature of true contentment. For whatever else may be said about our contemporary culture, we surely—none of us—would want to stand up and proclaim that one of the hallmarks is contentment.
Indeed, an absence of contentment is so pervasive in our culture as to be almost palpable. In playing golf with three men, none of whom had anything to do with our church family here—all of them were essentially strangers to me—I was sitting at lunch waiting for the arrival of the fourth member of our foursome. It turned out the two men with whom I was sitting were stockbrokers and were in charge of some fairly healthy sums of money for some fairly significant clients. In the course of conversation, which I found intriguing, I was brave enough to ask this question, "'How many of your clients are contented?' I said." It was met by a deafening silence. I followed it up by this question, "'How many of you are contented?'
It was an even greater silence as they looked at one another. And in honesty, this is what they said. As they looked around on one another, each one said, "'I cannot think of a single client who is contented.'"
And they weren't prepared to be just as honest about themselves. And so I said, "'You know, one of the most wonderful statements I've ever found in relationship to this goes like this, "'Godliness with contentment is great gain.'" "'Oh,' said one of them, "'that sounds really good.'" He says to his friend, "'That sounds good, doesn't it?' The friend said, "'Yes.'" He said, "'Where did you get that?'"
"'Oh,' I said, "'I got it,' I said, "'it's in a book.'" That led to a whole conversation which followed, but I told him, "'It's 1 Timothy 6.6. Godliness with contentment is great gain.'"
It sounded like a revolutionary statement, because that is exactly what it was. The last two commandments with which we dealt—namely, stealing and lying—had to do with actions. This one gets even deeper into our souls, because the tenth commandment deals with attitude.
The tenth commandment tackles us not so much in the realm of our deeds as it does in the matter of our desires. Most of us, presumably, would never actually think of stealing somebody else's possessions. But the fact that we would not actually take that coat or jacket off the person's body or steal it from the racks that are out here right now presumably does not prevent us from carrying in our hearts a bitter jealousy, because we do not like the fact that they have it and we don't. It's the sin, the problem, of coveting.
It transcends cultures, barriers of race and creed, financial gain or the absence of it. Change distinctions all bow to covetousness. Watch your children as they take a vanilla ice cream cone, are perfectly contented with it until they walk past somebody who got the works. And suddenly, a perfectly good vanilla ice cream doesn't look as good, doesn't taste as good. But there was no transaction, no chemical change in the ice cream. The change was all in the mind of the little character, who decided that this looked so much better that, I don't like this vanilla one anymore. Well, you're gonna eat it.
No, I'm not. Then we have the great ice cream fiasco, the degree to which we are able to score victories at the level of the ice cream determines what is going to happen to the kid in his teenage years, his college years, and the kind of husband he will be to his wife. That's why when we talk about baby dedications and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, we're not just using a bunch of phrases. We're actually talking about something that is intrinsically important in the rearing and developing of character in children. If we raise greedy kids, we will walk our greedy daughters down the aisle and place them on the hands of some greedy man, and the two greedy individuals will spend their lives living consumed by covetousness.
It's impossible to stop it once you start it without major surgery, as we'll see. Now it would be bad enough if everybody recognized that this was a problem, but the trouble is we don't, and indeed our society is so driven by materialism that it cashes in on the very defect. And it portrays so many things for us in such a way as to create within our hearts a longing which we may begin to believe is a necessary longing to have something just because somebody else has got it.
If you want to enjoy a bath in materialism, watch the skins gain. Now, don't for a moment think that this is on the TV because you and I like watching golf. Don't be stupid. This is not a golf game. This is an advertising extravaganza of gargantuan proportions. And in order to keep us watching the commercials, they throw in a little bit of golf every so often.
Time it, and you'll see that I'm telling the truth. It is a huge materialistic vortex. Feeling a measure of discomfort with it, they have little cutaways to impoverish people and to talk about the fact that a certain percentage of these phenomenal sums of money will be devoted to charities. Why do they do this? In years past, they never cared. Now they're getting a little more sensitive.
The population's getting a little more thoughtful. And so they don't want to come across as completely crass materialists, so we'll mention the fact that charity is going to benefit from this little extravaganza in which we are engaged. The evidence of coveting is clear.
The verse identifies it for us. It outlines a number of ways in which we will see the evidence of coveting. Common focuses on a number of things. It may focus on money. Certainly the Bible is replete with references to those who were consumed by a concern for money. And some of us are tired with that brush.
We want clothes. You read in Joshua chapter 7 the story of Achan and how, in the conquest, they are able to pull together this vast amount of plunder. And the Word of God to the people of God is, don't touch any of that stuff. Achan determines he knows better. He takes it, and he buries it, and the servant of God comes to him and says, Achan, what have you done? And Achan says, listen, when I saw that beautiful robe from Babylonia, when I saw the two hundred shekels of silver, when I saw that gold bar, I said, I must have that stuff. Well, now, there's a strange feeling, isn't it? You've been to the mall recently? You had any of those feelings? When I saw that beautiful robe, when I saw that wonderful stuff, I said to myself, I must have it.
And guess what? They gave me a card to take the waiting out of wanting. To grease the slopes of my covetous heart, they allow me to have it now and pay forever.
They call it later, I call it forever. Coveting money, coveting clothes, coveting people. Here I have my wife from my youth. She grows, she develops, she bears my children, she nurtures me, she guides me, she counsels me, and society buffets me with visual images of the kind of wife that you should have.
She looks different, she acts different, she is different, and it sucks out of the mind of a man the desire to discard this and go for this, and every day across our nation it happens again and again and again. It stems from a covetous heart, you see. Covetousness always appeals to that which is based within the heart of man.
That is covetousness in a wrongful sense. The writer John puts it very clearly, I think, but I'm going to have to check. First John chapter 2, and verse—yes, good—"Do not love the world," verse 15, "…or anything in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world," and then he describes the world, the cosmos apart from God.
What is it? The cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world. So everything that my sinful heart begins to go for, the cravings of my heart, the lust of my eyes, the ability to boast about my possessions and who I am and my prestige and what I'm able to do, doesn't have its source in God. And he says the tragedy of it is that the world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. It's a very clear choice. It's the choice between the broad road and the narrow road. It's the choice between time and eternity.
It's the choice between God's way and man's way, and every day we live our lives we're confronted by those kinds of choices. Think about the fact that covetousness draws itself around our throats when we think of seeking after positions that other people have. If only I was one further rung up this corporate ladder, I would be a happy guy. I don't like it here. I don't like this office. I don't like how many windows it has.
I don't like the fact that it has no windows. If I could get one rung up, boy, I'd be good. And you know what? That joker one floor up from me, he shouldn't be there.
Everybody knows that, especially me. I resent him. I resent his car. I resent his income, and I resent the fact that he's in my office.
You ever felt like that at all? To covet his heart. Or coveting other people's prestige.
Other people will be able to say, My, my, my, isn't he done well? We're bringing our kids up with that as the American dream. Whatever happened to the American dream?
Let me ask you another question. Whatever happened to biblical contentment? Whatever happened to satisfaction in the awareness of the fact that God has not pledged himself to baptize our materialistic urgencies into orthodox Christianity? There is nowhere in the whole Bible that assumes that we are going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise as a result of our commitment to Jesus Christ.
And to teach it that way is an absolute violation of the Bible. And yet we hear it all the time, day in and day out, I put Jesus first in my life, and I have scored more touchdowns now than I ever did. I put Jesus first in my life, and you ought to come and drive in my car.
I put Jesus first in my life, and my company has gone through the roof in its profits. What is the message? The message is Jesus is a guru on the way to materialistic happiness.
It doesn't sound like the words of Jesus, does it? If anyone would like to follow me, let him take up his cross every day, die to himself and follow me. If any man would be my disciple, let him burn his bridges and go. Let him pull his boats up on the shore and follow me.
Let him leave everything behind. Loved ones, we got it so upside down and living with it for so long that when somebody turns the Scriptures the right side up for us, it starts to sound like heresy to us. When I had the privilege of preaching at those meetings in Hong Kong, in the morning post in Hong Kong, there's this unbelievable piece of work. It says you too can own one for only 9.5 million.
I can't read it to you while I don't have the time, but I'll give you a little flavor of it. Everyone wants to be number one, okay? There's this right in it, straight off. That's a real problem, isn't it? Because how many captains are there going to be in your soccer team? One.
Are you listening? One. So, that means that ten other boys are presumably are going to have to live with the horrible feelings of resentment because they were not picked as the captain. It is absolute rubbish that everybody has to be number one, and everybody wants to be number one, okay? Everyone wants to be number one, but being number two does not come cheap. As a tycoon proved yesterday with a flamboyant bid which landed him with the most expensive car number plate in the world. This is a number plate.
This is not a car. In an ostentatious spending spree, even by Hong Kong standards, Mr. Wong Ming-hong forked out a record $9.5 million for the number two license plate that formally graced the limousine of Financial Secretary Mr. Hamish MacLeod. His license plate is worth more than all of his cars. Lexus, BMW, the whole shooting match, when he takes all of his cars and rolls them together, they don't even come close to being worth what the number two is on the front of his car.
Now, his friends were really ticked off. For example, there was Mr. Chow, who got ticked off and left as a beaten man while the bidding stood at a modest $7.6 million. The bidding started at half a million, and Mr. Ming-hong here got into it somewhere around $7 million. He said, I'm happy with hitting the mark at $9.5 million. The price is reasonable. I expected to get it at over $10 million, said a cheery Mr. Wong afterwards. Okay? Now, that's Hong Kong—Mr.
Wong in Hong Kong. I came here in August the 3rd, 1983. I started trying to get intelligent, read the Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, October 12, 1983. Here it is. Headline, Inside Full Page Adversement in the Wall Street is Headed, Demoralize Thy Neighbor.
Okay? Now, this is an Aston Martin, for those of you who are car aficionados. It's one thing to trundle by in a Bentley, Jagger, Mercedes, or the like.
Everyone in your neighborhood has one of those. It's quite another thing to come in for a landing in your Lagonda. The Lagonda is an Aston Martin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you get an Aston Martin, then all the poor clowns in your neighborhood that only drive Jaguar, Mercedes, and BMW, you're gonna make them go to bed feeling really bad.
So why don't you buy a Lagonda? Now, doesn't that appeal to everything that's good in us, doesn't it? Your sensible people think this stuff out. Is the Bible relevant to our day? Of course it is. It's powerfully applicable to our day. It gets to the very heart of the issues.
It is part of the human condition at any time in any culture that a covenous heart can never be truly content. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. It's easier for us to resist the lure of materialism when we spend time daily meditating on God's Word.
And by now you've probably heard me mention our current book recommendation. It's Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions. This is a biblically based devotional from Alistair.
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I'm Bob Lapine. Weeds are not a welcome part of anyone's garden. They don't coexist with other plants. They take over and destroy. That's why it's important for us to ruthlessly root them out. Coveting can do the exact same thing in our hearts. It'll destroy relationships and tear us down. Join us tomorrow as we learn how to cut off coveting at the source. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
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