Thou shalt not covet… (Ex 20:17)
Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbour's[1]. (Ex 20:17)
The whole concept of covetousness[2]
can be fairly summarized by the rejection of all the foregoing Commandments. When man ceases to recognize the God of
Heaven as His Sovereign and King, he will turn to covet the ways of those
nations round about who have a king other than God. In the days of the Judges,
the Children of Israel forgot the miraculous salvation the Lord had afforded
them in bringing them out of Egypt with a “strong, outstretched arm” and had
fed them in the wilderness and protected them. Now they desired to gain some
worldly acceptance by looking, feeling, and acting like all of the other
nations round about. So they went to Samuel and pleaded their ungodly cause: Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a
king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when
they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the
LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they
say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that
I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done
since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith
they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. (1 Sam 8:5-8)
Coveting the tinsel and manners of the world, in abandonment
of God’s Sovereignty, is never a wise move on the part of any people or
individual. Either their failure to keep the First Commandment led them to
covet the ways and practices of the worldly nations, or their covetous natures
led them to disown the First Commandment. Whichever is the case, it led to a
great deal of pain and suffering for them. It is evident in God’s counsel to
the prophet Samuel that these people had broken other Commandments as well.
Firstly, they had rejected God Almighty; secondly they had turned to idolatry
(spiritual adultery); thirdly, God says that they had forsaken Him in all the
works they had done since leaving Egypt – ALL the works; and fourthly, they
have turned to coveting the things of the world and not of God. Perhaps it was
this covetous attitude, demonstrated from the moment of leaving Egypt until
now, that had led them on to more prolific sins. After dispensing with God as
their King and opting for Saul, David, and even men of greater wickedness, they
suffered wars, famines, invasions, and finally were turned back into bondage in
Assyria and Babylon. Turning from God always results in bondage.
Once God has freed a nation from bondage, they will suffer a
return of the chains if they turn away their hearts and minds from the One who
was their Benefactor and Mentor in establishing them as a nation among the
nations of the earth. A nation whose allegiance is to God will appear always
peculiar to other ‘more sophisticated-appearing’ nations round about whose
minds are open to every deviant lifestyle. America was separate and apart from
every other nation upon God’s green earth for the first 175 years of her
founding; but she has turned rebellious to God and sought other sovereigns to
rule over her. The promiscuity and disdain for righteousness of Paris, Hong
Kong, Rio de Janiero have appealed more to her taste than the Holy City of God.
She has gone on the path to Sodom, and the road to Gomorrah. She has sacrificed
her children by allowing them to pass through the fire to Tammuz.
Perhaps before proceeding further, we should define the
term, COVET. The term, covet, means more than simple greed, jealousy, or
selfishness – it means to eagerly desire that which belongs to another, not
something LIKE it, but the possession itself. To covet your neighbor’s house is
not to desire to have a house LIKE your neighbor’s, but to have HIS house only!
Covetousness means to desire the wealth of others by taking, and not creating,
that wealth. To covet a man’s wife is to desire that wife for yourself and to
leave the man devoid of wife or family. Believe it or not, there are wealthy
men who spend long hours of the night coveting the pittance of the poor. They
scheme and conjure up every imaginable plan to plunder the possessions of the
rich and poor alike without distinction.
EXAMPLE: When I was in high school, my family had one
automobile. If I drove at all, I had to earn the use of that automobile for a
short period of driving pleasure. But there was another fellow in my class who
wore the best clothes, always had cash in his pockets, and drove a fine new
automobile. He was quite enterprising, I learned later. When I asked him how he
made all of that money, he told me that he sold vacuum cleaners on the weekend.
I marveled that he could make such good money selling vacuum cleaners. He
invited me to go with him on the next weekend to see how easy it was. We drove
up into the very sparsely populated foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and
stopped at many pitiful little Appalachian shacks along the road. The residents
of those poor dwellings were humble mountain people who felt obligated to be
hospitable and kind to strangers. Their floors, for the most part, were wooden
boarding. My friend would dump dust and trash on the floor and then vacuum it
up. He would vacuum their worn sofas and arm chairs and gather quite an
embarrassing amount of dirt and grime. He would ask these poor people if they
really wanted to live in such an unclean environment.
Not wanting to reject his offers to help them live in a ‘cleaner
house’ they agreed to sign a contract for the vacuum cleaner which, if I
remember correctly, was about three hundred dollars (late 50’ and early 60’s)
They would obligate themselves to pay $20/month for just about the rest of
their lives. I would estimate that 50% of the houses we stopped at purchased
one of these devices whose value was somewhat worthless on wood floors through
the cracks of which one could see to the ground.
After the first day’s ‘work’ on Saturday, my friend asked me
if I wanted to give it a try. I responded with an emphatic ‘NO!’ because
robbing the poor to provide me with luxury did not meet with even MY OWN
minimum standards. I would classify my ‘friend’ as being covetous of the labors
of the poor. He desired to defraud them of what little treasure they had to
satisfy his insatiable appetite for luxury and prestige. Sure, he dated the
prettiest girls, and was envied by the guys; but his character, unless touched
at some future point by the forgiving grace of God, was destined to the fires
of Hell.
In the mid-sixties, and quite a time after, a great evil
swept across America. No longer were the old values of God, country, and family
honor of any consequence. This was the era of Aquarius! Sexual promiscuity,
drug use, and disrespect for all polity were promoted. Family and marriage
became taboo, and the flower-child mentality spread from Woodstock to Berkeley.
Our nation has never fully recovered from that long night of licentious
self-gratification[3]. Those
rebellious generations have now become the leaders of modern-day America. Since
that day, every urge of the millions has been to satisfy self at all cost to
others. GET, and GIVE not!
A deep-seated spirit of covetousness was given birth by
prodigious generation the likes of which have pervaded business, industry,
academia, and government. Everything must be free to the consuming vagrant, and
at all cost to the honest tax-payer. No one is truly held responsible for
laziness, lack of self discipline, or failure to seek gainful employment. If
one has not, it is because some other has worked and gained a good living. The
fault of poverty is placed precisely where the fault should not be ascribed –
the productive elements of society. The worthless poor (who are able but
unwilling to work) desire the fruits of the labor of those who DO work. They
have a vote during elections, and their number has swelled to the point of
tipping the balance of power in America. Such a circumstance of covetous greed
is a really bad omen for America’s future. But that covetousness had a
beginning, and that beginning was a rejection of God as Sovereign of the land.
The same happened to ancient Israel, and the same is happening to the Israel of
the New Testament Church.
From God we gather the sense of Duty, Honor, Country. There
is no sense of honor in a covetous heart, but when did that sense of honor
escape his notice? It was the moment that he failed to recognize the First Commandment
of God as the Beacon Light of his life! Those hearts that covet have no sense
of Duty, or of Country. For these values come from a just and Law-Giving God.
An evil and adulterous generation has removed the Ancient Landmark of God’s
Word and replaced the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done” with the words “Not thy
will, but MY will be done.”
The last Commandment embraces the sins of all of the others.
Murder, adultery, theft, false witness – all spring from a corrupt and wicked
heart. The wrong thought admitted nourishes the wrong desire, which in turn
gives birth to the wrong behavior. Out of the heart emerge the issues of life. (Prov
4:23) If the vessel
itself is unclean, so will be the contents. If the vessel is pure, so may the
water it contains be pure.
Remember – In the Final Hour, the answer
is the same – Thy Will Be Done.
The question is who will say it, you or God? Friend, the answer will be best if printed in black.
[1]
For you Pharisees out
there attempting to justify your actions, consult Luke 10:25-37 – The Good
Samaritan parable and think who your neighbor might be.
[2]
Coveting requires the rejection
of the old saw, There is no free lunch. Nothing is free, everything is paid for
by someone. If something is truly
given to you, it is a gift, it is still not free. The giver paid.
If you give something in exchange, it is not a gift, but paid for in
some way. If you covet, you want what someone else paid for by taking it, not
earning it. To covet requires you
to want things bad enough to take them without earning them. Thus, you reject all God asks us to
stand for. It is the Summary Sin!
[3] In point of fact, it
appears the current rebellion against God is attempting to go further away from
Him, making the 1960s look “ultra-conservative.”
