So we're in Exodus chapter 20
and verse 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 anything
that is thy neighbour's. Here we are speaking today about
covetousness. Now that's not a word that we
use very often, or to covet, if we use it in the verb form,
but to covet is to desire something, to want something. very much,
especially something that belongs to someone else. It has to do
with envy, it has to do with desire. And this, as we've mentioned,
is the 10th commandment that the Lord gave to the children
of Israel by Moses and I think that it is, again, very interesting
because it teaches us that sin is more than the things that
we do, more than just our deeds or our actions. Now we've made
mention of this a number of times throughout these studies because
that, in a sense, is the essence of the law. Not merely that if
we don't do something that we are holy because it has to do
with our attitude, it has to do with our hearts. And this
commandment, this verse, explicitly teaches that. Sin may include
what we think, what we say, what we feel, and what we desire,
as well as what we do. And this commandment shows us
that the root of evil is in the desire of our heart and how that
by thinking evil thoughts, perhaps long before we ever do any evil
thing, we nevertheless are breaking the law of God and we are held
in account for that. Because coveting is desiring
something that is not ours, this command actually addresses the
root of several other sins that have already been mentioned in
these Ten Commandments. So that lying, for example, finds
its origin in covetousness, trying to get out of a situation, trying
to get something that we don't have. Stealing is as a result
of covetousness, wanting something that is not our property. adultery
as well, is in a very real sense coveting someone that we have
no right to engage with or have any encounters with. And all
of this results, occurs, because we covet something that we don't
have and is not ours by right. Coveting is, in that sense, a
secret sin. It's a sinful wanting of something
which may not be expressed, but which is felt in the mind, and
it's a forbidden desire for something, even before we act to get it. Coveting springs from greed,
and from lust, and from envy. And the Lord taught us about
this in his own ministry. He spoke about it in Matthew
chapter 15 and verse 18 and 19. He says, those things which proceed
out of the mouth come forth from the heart. and they defile the
man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, and murders, and adulteries, and fornications,
thefts, false witness, and blasphemies." So the Lord was showing the people
of his own generation here that to properly understand sin, we
need to understand that it is not in the first instance in
the action that is committed but in the motivation that emanates
from our hearts and our desires. The Prophet Jeremiah He said
that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. So that
while we might think we are good-hearted or we're generous or we are kind
in our attitudes and the reason for the things that we do, we
like to think that about ourselves. Jeremiah tells us that our hearts
are so deceitful that they're actually able to camouflage their
own wickedness. And we don't even know how deceitful
our hearts are. And again, we are learning from
the Word of God that a simple, straightforward statement from
the Scripture, here in the commandments, leads us to realise how deep-rooted
and widespread sin is in our lives. It is only what we do
and say very often that we think of as being sin, probably because
we're thinking, well, other people might see us and judge us for
that, whereas they don't know what's going on in my thoughts. But God knows what we're thinking,
and God knows the reasons why we do and say things. So that it's not only what we
do and say, but why we do them, and the feelings and desires
that cause us to sin that the Lord looks upon. Men look on
the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And the Lord,
when he was giving these commandments to Moses, gave some examples
of coveting, or covetousness. And he talks of coveting, or
rather, he talks of not coveting your neighbour's house. Probably
the children of Israel were living in tents or at least not living
in houses that we might consider today. But these commandments
were to follow them and be lived by when they get into the
promised land, the land that the Lord was leading them to.
But we know what the Lord is saying here. that we are not
to covet our neighbor's house and that also includes our neighbor's
property, our neighbor's fields, our neighbor's lands that's enlarged
upon in other passages of scripture. We're not to cover our neighbor's
wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his ox or his
ass or indeed anything that is our neighbor's. And when we look
enviously at what someone else has, or think to ourselves, I
want that, I would like that, I want to own that, I want to
possess that, I want to enjoy that, it is coveting what is
not our own. And it shows that we are not
content with what we have. but rather we're dissatisfied
and unhappy at what God has given us. So that covetousness is in
essence against God because it says God got it wrong by not
giving me what he has given to somebody else. And that betrays
our attitude of rebellion against God. And this commandment also
teaches us that the law is spiritual and that our obedience to the
law does not consist in just doing things that are forbidden. This was a great mistake that
the Jews made in the time of Jesus. They took the commands
of Moses and they said, OK, well, we we can't do this and we can't
do this. But does it include this? And
does it include that? And they added lots and lots
of different conditions and and lots of different ways of looking
at the laws of God so that they ended up not with 10 commandments,
but with hundreds of commandments. all about different things. And
people assumed that if they lived by the rules of the scribes and
the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the lawyers, then they would
be right with God. God would regard them as being
holy, that God would call them good people. But the Lord had
to show the people of his age and the Lord has to show all
of us that sin doesn't merely consist in what we do or don't
do. but it has its origins in our
fallen nature. Sin germinates in our sinful
hearts. It arouses our sinful desires. It surges out in our sinful actions
and it spoils and corrupts all that we are and think and say
and do. And the Apostle Paul knew that.
He says, I know that in me That is, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. And that's always, remember,
Paul was a believer when he said that. And it's always good to
remind ourselves that whether we might like to think that we're
better than we are, in our flesh dwells no good thing. Actually,
the Apostle Paul speaks about this very verse in Exodus, in
Romans chapter 7 and verse 7, and he calls it the motions of
sin, or what motivates sin in our lives. He says, I had not
known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust except the
law had said thou shalt not covet. Paul doesn't say that the law
causes our lust, but he is pointing out that it reveals it. And the law of God, because it
is holy, just and good, it points out our failures, and it stirs
up our wicked desires, because it measures the depth and the
extent of our sins. and it counts our rebellions
and it tallies up our opposition to God's law and God's holiness
and God's goodness. So that Paul can show from his
own experience that as a Pharisee, which is what he was, who tried
to keep the law perfectly and properly, that the spirituality
of the law condemned him by exposing the things that he tried to suppress. Paul's experience was that the
more he tried to do good, the more he tried to do right, then
the deeper that the law took him in exposing his weakness
and his inability to do so. He realised that righteousness
will never be obtained by the things that we do, when the real
problem is our heart and its covetous motions, its lustful
desires. Paul needed a new heart, and
therefore he cried out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? and he doesn't leave us wondering
what the answer is. Good for Paul, he gives us the
answer immediately. He says, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Our righteousness comes from
God through Jesus Christ our Lord and all that the Saviour
has accomplished for us in his life and death on our behalf. By the Lord Jesus Christ, we
can have a new heart, and new desires, and a new understanding,
and new loyalties, and new life. Paul learned that being a follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ meant becoming a completely new creation. A transformation, a conversion
that only the Lord could accomplish. so that he says in 2 Corinthians
5, verse 17, therefore if any man, and we might enlarge that
to see if any man or any woman or any boy or any girl, be in
Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away, and
behold, all things are become new. As we've gone through these commandments,
we've seen how sometimes what seems to be on the surface like
a fairly straightforward instruction actually has much greater meaning
and deeper significance. And if we ever get to that point
where we think to ourselves, I can do that, or I can do that,
or I can choose not to do that, we actually discover that we
can't. And not only that we can't, but
because we can't, we begin to resent the law, and we begin
to hate the law, because it shows us up for what we really are. and we begin to hate the law
giver and we spend our time trying to beat the law and get round
the law and to get round its prohibitions. What an honest
person discovers is that we will never be righteous and holy when
we're measured against the law of God. We need the Lord Jesus. and we need God the Holy Spirit
to create a new heart in us. We need to be covered with the
righteousness of Christ and the righteousness of God. David could
say in Psalm 51 verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a right spirit within me. I hope that this becomes the
prayer of not just the young people for whom these talks are
primarily intended, but for all of us, that we might share David's
prayer, that we might pray with David, create in me a clean heart. None of us will ever find peace
trying to prove to God how good we can be, just like Peeling
an onion, there will always be another layer to be stripped
away by the work of the law. And just like peeling an onion,
that process will make us cry. But if by faith we find all our
righteousness in the Lord Jesus, if all our holiness and righteousness
and sanctification and purity comes from Christ, then he shall
dry our tears and wipe them away forever, put a new heart within
us, and with it a new joyful song. There is bondage in the
law of Moses, and there is a liberty in trusting Christ. There's condemnation
in the law, but there's justification in trusting Christ. There is
conviction in the law, but there is peace with God in trusting
Christ. And may the Holy Spirit teach
us the proper way to understand God's Ten Commandments, and how
true righteousness is found to be obtained in trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thank you once again for your
attention and for listening. Amen.