Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church
Stevensville, MT
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October 1, 2006

"Thou Shalt Not Covet: The Key Commandment" (Part 1)
Exodus 20:17

There's something deliberately special about this tenth commandment prohibiting coveting.  The better we understand and apply this one, the more readily the other commandments will become a way of life for us.

This morning, let's try to:

1. Understand the term "covet."
2. Understand the verse (Ex. 20:17)
3. Understand ourselves.
4. Understand God's point. 

Exodus 20:17
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

I have a friend whose name is Chartra. He is from the northeastern corner of India in the little kingdom of Sikkim. It is a strong Buddhist kingdom and Chartra was reared in strict Buddhism.

His uncle was a Buddhist priest. I have heard Chartra’s testimony many times and I am always fascinated by the way it began. He would go to Buddhist class at about 5 a.m., say his prayers with his father and then go through some extensive instruction before he would actually begin his day as the son of a wealthy government official. Chartra said that one of the primarily tenets or principles of his Buddhist teaching (coming from his uncle) was that we need to rid ourselves of all desires, thus in a sense emptying ourselves of that facet of our physical humanity. Desires are bad, so we need to get rid of them. Their ways of getting rid of them are primarily through meditation and self flagellation and other things that are done.

Chartra had reached a point in his life where he had a question about those desires. He said it bothered him so much that he went to his uncle with a bit of fear and trembling and said, “Uncle, I have a question about our desires and about getting rid of our desires. Isn’t desiring to get rid of our desires itself a desire? That’s a question for which uncle had no answer.

Chartra wasn’t finished seeking answers. He went away to the University of Calcutta and there he encountered a New Testament left by a Campus Crusade worker. Chartra picked up the New Testament, read it, and through that ministry surrendered his life to Jesus. He was for a time the only Christian from his land where no evangelism was allowed, no radio broadcasts with the gospel were allowed -- nothing.  Chartra returned home excited about his faith, was promptly disenfranchised from his family, thrown into jail for six months and then kicked out of the country for good.

Through a series of truly miraculous events he ended up in the United States. Somebody, he doesn’t know who to this day, paid his way through seminary in Chicago. He married a Great Falls, MT, girl. By then enough years had gone by. Many of the old guard had passed away and his contemporaries from his childhood were now in charge in his homeland and he was able then to return. For many years now he has gone back every year and has been amazingly used by God not only to preach the gospel but to see whole villages come to faith, establish orphanages and churches and send out gospel teams. It is an amazing thing, all traceable to that coveting question. I find that amazing.

Let’s scroll across the Pacific to Portland, Oregon where Mary and I went to school and spent a time. Let me talk to you about Christian coveting. As students, with the G.I. Bill and my working at UPS and Mary working at the hospital, we probably had more money then at our disposal than ever in life. We had neighbors who drove Camaros. These were late 70’s Camaros and they were beautiful. I found myself looking out the sliding glass doors, looking how pretty those Camaros were. I thought, “I’ve got to get me one of those.” Please understand I have never been a name it or claim it type of individual. That was not the point. I should have known better at the time, but as I look back, all it was was “I want one!” There is a way to covet as a Christian that is quasi spiritual. You look at the Camaro and you say, “I don’t want that Camaro. That would be coveting. I just want one identical to it.” Sometimes we can get away with that.

So I’m watching the newspaper ads and I see there advertised a 1976 Camaro. So one Saturday morning Mary and I went to look at it. It was gorgeous. New paint, kind of a plum color with a brown interior.  It was spotless. I got in that Camaro and . . . I didn’t fit. I would sit in that seat, hit the pedals no problem, but I’m also hitting the ceiling.

I’m scrunching down thinking, “I can make this work.” So I bought it. Can you believe that? I bought this Camaro I didn’t fit in. I drove it for a little while. It was so pretty I honestly was reluctant to drive it to school because I would be seen as the vile, carnal Christian I really was.

By God’s grace, after the callous on my head was getting more and more painful, we sold the car. I learned a lifelong lesson which I share with you today. We’re all susceptible to this sort of thing. The problem with coveting is that it starts in the heart. What makes me excited about coveting, excited about understanding what this commandment does is it envelops all the other nine and takes us from our heart to God’s heart. I hope we see how that works over today and next Sunday.

We need to understand what this coveting thing is all about. I really believe that as we do understand it and as we do need to be cautious about it and certainly avoid it in the sinful sense, coveting is our friend in a commandment like no other. I’ll tell you why upfront and I’ll tell you why again as we go. It is our friend because it takes us to God. It shows us who we are. It shows us where we lack and opens up to us our need of the only One who can satisfy. That’s what it is designed to do for us.

It goes much deeper than simply trying to rid oneself of all desires. That is not the point. It certainly goes much deeper than a western attempt to keep up with the Joneses as it was in my case perhaps. This Tenth Commandment works in the kingdom like no other and we need to understand it.

We’re going to walk through the verse a bit. We’re going to try to understand the term and then the verse and we’ll go from there. I am confident that by the end of our journey through this Tenth Commandment we will understand why it’s there. We’ll understand what it is designed to do and I trust we will have yielded totally to it.

The Hebrew word for covet is really interesting. The word means to desire something, to take delight in something. That word is the word from which Arabic gets the word “Mohammad,’ as though Mohammad is a desirable or a delightful individual. In what do we delight? What is our desire? I’m saying that the word itself is neutral. It simply means to desire.

I’m going to walk through some places in the Bible where the word is used.

Genesis 3:6 – “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food.” You know where we are – in the Garden, and there’s the tempter and there’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is Eve. She takes a gander at that tree and saw that it was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes and desirable to make one wise. All human history goes downhill right about here. But it is not the fault of the word, not at all. As a matter of fact, back in Genesis 2:9 it says that out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing. It’s a good thing, because God made it. It’s a good thing because God set it up. It’s pleasing. It’s desirable. It becomes bad, or sin, when the human spin is put upon it, bringing it back around to serve self.

Proverbs 6:25, where the young man is warned to beware of the wiles of the wanton woman. “Do not desire her beauty in your heart.” That’s the warning. That will lead you absolutely to ruin. How is it then, that the Song of Solomon 2:3, taking the very same word, that Old Testament book that in a sense sanctifies love between a man and a woman, says that my groom is the one I desire among all others? In his shade, I took great delight. Desire is fine and when it is sanctioned by God it is the same thing with a different object and a different motivation.

There is nothing wrong with natural desire. This is where we part company with the Buddhists, where they would say you have to get rid of that.  Shadra would say, “How?” And we would say, “Why?” By the grace of God and through the channels of God, desire does not have to be coveting. Desire does not have to be evil, and it does not have to lead to disaster.

When Achan, among the spoils of Jericho, in the seventh chapter Joshua, confessed his sin – remember he stole things – he explained to Joshua and to those who were standing around him what had happened. He said, “I saw among the spoils there in Jericho things that were not mine, that God had spoken about and said no, they are Mine, leave them be. Achan said, “Ah, but I saw this beautiful shawl from Babylon and silver and gold in abundance. I saw them and I coveted them.” All he is saying is I wanted them, I desired them.

In Psalm 19, talking about the Word of God, the Bible says that the judgments are true. They are righteous altogether. More to be desired are they, more desirable are they, than gold, sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb. Same idea, except God decides and His Word provides the final word on our desires. 

Ezekiel 23 is an interesting chapter because this is when the judgment is falling upon the kingdom of Judah. The kingdom of Israel is gone. They have already been carried away by the Assyrians. God speaks to the prophet and says you southern kingdom of Judah, you should have noticed what happened up north, how they paid for their sins. Their sins included illegitimate desire of the foreign nation, and it brought them judgment, whereas that very same word, desire, is used in Isaiah 32 to express those things that God’s people should want from Him as fruit in the land. Same word, different result. On the one hand, blessing; on the other hand, judgment, for desiring.

The Bible is written in two languages, but the truth about coveting transfers from the Old Testament to the New very readily. In Ephesians 2, the apostle Paul takes no prisoners, never did. He says in Ephesians 2:3, talking about being formerly walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience, all bad:

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

The desires there obviously have to do with coveting that which is not right.

In Philippians, same author, right about the same time. Ephesians and Philippians were written fairly close together. The apostle is writing from prison in Rome. He is talking about how good it is that the gospel is advancing and it is good that I am able to encourage people even though I am in jail, but Paul says what I really want to do is be with Jesus.

Philippians 1
21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
22But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose.
23But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and ⁽be with Christ, for that is very much better;

“I am coveting that,” he says. I want to depart and be with Jesus. That’s a good thing. That’s a good kind of covet and Paul expresses that.

Desire, craving, want -- they come to us from our hearts and express themselves into our minds and on into our behavior. Please understand they are natural. Please understand that the key to being a Christian, living a victorious Christian life, is not the suppression or the obliteration of natural desires. That is not what being a Christian is about. Sadly, I think, the Christian faith has been caricatured, artificially represented that way a lot in some circles. If you are smiling, you can’t be a Christian. If you have wants and desires, that’s ungodly. No, it is not; it’s natural. The object of it makes the difference as to whether or not it is sin.

Let’s look at Exodus 20:17. Understand the verse. By the way, here is a principle of understanding the Bible. Every passage of scripture has one meaning. Many applications, but one meaning. The meaning is the one the author intended it to mean. So when we say let’s sit around and talk about what this verse means to me, I hope that doesn’t mean we are saying you tell me what you think the verse means and we’ll all pool our ignorance. No, the verse means one thing. You can say this is how I apply it to my life, fine. Or this is how God uses it in my life or this is how it blessed me. Great, but when we are talking about meaning we need to go to the plain meaning.

Exodus 20: 17
"You shall not covet [desire] your neighbor's house; you shall not covet [desire] your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Let’s recreate this scenario. Who are these people? Let’s remember where they are and what is going on. They have been 40 years in the wilderness, walking around. The Bible said that God saw to it that during all that time of travel over very rough terrain, sharp stones and so forth, their shoes did not wear out. God was constantly making their shoes fine. They did not lack. He fed them with manna from heaven. He told them where to go from A to B to C for 40 years. Frequently along the way they stopped, or a few of them must have, and had a funeral because the point of the wilderness wandering was to allow time for all those who did not trust God to pass away in the wilderness.

Think about it. This is about trusting God and for 40 years they had really no other choice. “What are we having for breakfast?” “Manna.” “Is there enough?” “Just enough. Supper? Manna and goat.” That’s how they lived. Now they are entering the Promised Land. They are poised, in the book of Deuteronomy where this is repeated, to enter the land where no longer is God going to give them manna. Now they are going into a different setting. They are going to quit traveling. I assume that means somebody will need to be a sandal repair guy, hang out a shingle saying, “I Make Shoes.” Probably one in every village.

Villages? There are many of them. Guess who built them? The people who are going to be dispossessed when the children of Israel come as a horde into the Promised Land. They are going to inhabit cities they didn’t build, that God would provide for them as they remove the residents who had been there. Cities they did not build and wells they did not dig. They are going to eat fruit from orchards they did not plant and didn’t have to wait for them to come to fruition and maturity. They are going to be handed a life!

That being the case, they are going to put down roots now. Wandering days are over. They get a free house, a free town, a free well, a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage – handed to them. It’s theirs. They are going to have neighbors now. They are going to own property. They are going to establish businesses, make a living, work a job. They are going to accumulate holdings and are going to find themselves very much like we find ourselves – thinking they have arrived and now let’s get on with life.

Without having to trust God as they had had to do. Now they are kind of on their own. They are going to have a tendency to compare, a tendency to look across the fence to compare, to compete, to covet. The human tendency is going to be a part of their lives. The Lord’s direct provision is no more as it had been. Their perspective is going to change. It was like this. For the manna God would provide. God would be there. Now they are settled. Now they have arrived -- jobs, families, kids, careers. Failing, neglecting to trust in God as they had had to do in the wilderness.

Exodus 20:17 contains three obvious truths. First of all, it is negative. Do not covet. It does not say appreciate what you have, be content with what the loving God has given you. It does not say that. Trust God with what He has provided. It doesn’t say that. It is a negative commandment, as most of them are, because it assumes the fallenness and the self-centeredness of the human heart. People who found themselves coveting say, “I’m not supposed to do that.” That is exactly what the Commandment is supposed to evoke. “I’m not supposed to do that. I can’t help it.” That’s right, you can’t. What you need is a new heart.

Secondly, it is all inclusive. It starts out kind of itemized. House, wife, male servant. “Or anything that belongs to your neighbor,” even his Kabota tractor. Anything. Don’t desire it. If it’s your neighbor’s, don’t desire it. It is all inclusive, anything, no room for substitutes, no room for excuses, no room for Christian coveting. “I don’t want that; I just want one identical to it.” No, we cannot do that because it is your neighbor’s and what God has given your neighbor is between God and neighbor. What God has given you, with that you are to be content.

Finally, it is internal. This is fascinating and we will be back at this point in a week. For now, this is an internal commandment. You can be sitting there right now, coveting, and nobody knows except, of course, God and you. Coveting is intensely private until it is made known. It is in that intensely private realm that God deals with our hearts, between Him and me, where He reveals to us our need.

I am fascinated by the rich young ruler, that episode in Jesus’ ministry recorded in three different places. It’s interesting how this rich guy, this young man comes up to Jesus and says, “Master, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life.” Jesus said let’s talk about the Commandments and He listed a few. In all gospel accounts Jesus lists Commandments that are outward. I can’t help but wonder if this rich young man was thinking I’ve gotten in under the radar here. Good thing He didn’t bring up coveting! That’s a tough one.

Dissatisfaction with what God has given? Pretty universal. Also invisible. But he still went away sad because Jesus touched him at the point of his heart. We understand the term is neutral. Desires are desires. They are natural and they are fine. The verse means that everything God has not given us is not to be desired by us, and when we cross that line, what that is telling us, between God and you or God and me, there is a problem with the heart.

The desires are not going away and neither is your neighbor. Neither is God. The problem with having a bad heart is it can only be fixed by getting a new one. That is where the Commandments will go. We are supposed to see this and say I do have a problem because the Bible says if you are a covetous person (Galatians 5, Matthew 15) don’t count on heaven. Oh my! I’m a covetous person. Nobody else perhaps knows, but God knows and I know and that’s the One with whom I have to do. I need a new heart. God, I need a new heart. I can’t get my own. You have to get me one.”

That’s the point. The good news is whoever cries out to God for a new heart gets one. Not the neighbor’s, but a whole new one from God.