“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” Exodus 20:17
I read an interesting article the other day by Paul Harvey, a former radio announcer who has gone to be with the Lord. The story is about a man who was driving to work when a woman in a brand new car hit him. The young woman jumped out of her car, tears rolling down her eyes. “I know; I know; it’s my fault. My husband just gave me this brand new car two days ago. What am I going to do? What am I going to say to my husband?” The man listening was sympathetic, but he had to leave. They exchanged their driver’s licenses, and when she opened the glove compartment to get her registration, inside the envelope was a letter from her husband which read, “In case of an accident, remember Honey, it’s you I love, and not the car.” Now that’s an understanding husband! His priorities were right. He understood that people were more important than material things.
The things that we have are not important. It is the people in our lives that make a difference. Now for some, God has blessed with many things. These people need to be good stewards of those things, and they are important because God gave it to them. But there‘s a danger when things become possessive—when we will do anything to keep going after things, no matter how old we are. I realize that material things sometimes are not the answer. And oftentimes, the more we get, the more we can destroy our relationships.
There was an 81 year old woman who passed away in 1930 and had been married to a man who had died earlier, leaving her the responsibilities of keeping the finances going. Her finances were estimated at seventeen million dollars back then. Many of her friends questioned if she could maintain it by herself, but she did great. In fact, she made even more money. When she died, she left no written will at all, so what happened after her death absolutely changed the history of lawsuits. More than twenty-six-thousand people from forty-seven states and twenty nine foreign countries represented by more than three thousand lawyers got involved to try and prove their relationship to her and to claim part of her estate. In their efforts to obtain her inheritance, they committed perjury, faked family records, and were even willing to doctor up the doctor’s family Bible by changing the date. Twelve were confined; ten received jail sentences; two committed suicide; three were murdered; and many have been found missing. It’s amazing what length people will go to in order to try and get something.
It’s not wrong to desire or to have something. God put that desire in our hearts. The Bible says that we are to covet the most earnest gift, but we are not to lust or to hurt or to destroy people in getting it. And when there comes a moment in our lives when we have taken care of ourselves and our families, and yet for some reason, God continues to bless us, then it’s time for us to stop and look around and see where else we can be a blessing. In other words, God has given us a gift. And we do not have to be rich to covet. One of the worst things that can happen is that some of us who have nothing are always wishing that we had more for the wrong reason. We covet and want what other people have. It is one of the worst sins of all.
Notice in Exodus 20:17, the tenth commandment says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” Now in Deuteronomy 5:21, there’s a little bit of a twist to it. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife… (Notice it puts the wife before the house.) …and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” In other words, you shall not covet. What is being said here in a very profound way is that we are not to covet his house, not to look at his real estate, and not to wish that we could have what he has. So when we go for a walk, or a drive, and we see something that we desire, and wish that we could have that—be careful. If we are desiring something that we cannot have, then we shouldn’t. A wife who desires this would be putting her husband through something that he may not be able to give. Sometimes we’re probably not even taking care of what we do have. The grass always seems greener on the other side. We feel; we expect; we deserve—it’s our right. We have a desire—we want it. We can justify just about anything we want. So we shouldn’t look at what our neighbor has. So what if he has three houses and we have one. We begin to think that we need to get our act together in order to have the same, so we put the pressure on ourselves. Soon we have a second job and then as a result, we get a divorce. Or we have a second job and we drag our spouse through it all, never seeing them and then losing the kids. What does it really cost us when we desire what we really shouldn’t have or we go above what God wants us to do? What does it cost when we look at the sacrifices that we will have to make to leave God out of our lives—possibly leaving our church, quit mid-week studies, or quit Sunday night studies, just to, once again, make the millions. And by the way, for those who do have a lot, it takes a heart and a life of stewardship to keep what they do have. It takes incredible insight and brilliance to hold on to what they have, because it is not easy holding on to it, otherwise they can lose it overnight. They are always worried about it; they can’t stop thinking about it; they have to make more. There are all kinds of traps along the way. There’s no doubt, it’s nice having money—to lay money down without any thought, to be able to go and do this or that, to go on a trip, or to go into the store and purchase whatever is desired.
We are not to covet our neighbor’s wife. You might hear your wife complaining constantly that she’s short and fat and do not like how she looks and her hair’s a mess. Then the neighbor’s wife moves in. She’s tall and thin and her hair is together. Your thoughts—wow! Look at her. So your wife questions you, “What about me?” Your reply might be that you have endured all the complaining that she has made through the years, and then you make the mistake of saying that the neighbor’s wife is tall and thin. And all of a sudden, you get slapped for your comments. Don’t covet! Don’t look! Don’t desire! The woman that God gave you is the woman that God wants you to have. And the way that God made her is exactly what God wants.
We are not to covet the neighbor’s servant. This may be what we are doing in our business: we rip off other people’s partners; we rip off other people’s merchandise; and we take their foremen. We don’t care and just want to take care of our own business, so we’re going to rip off and we’re going to steal. Don’t do it. Let’s not do that to our neighbor. Don’t do that to the friends we have in business. God will send somebody to us. But we must not abuse them in order to get ahead. For example, we might observe that our neighbor’s servants can mow their lawn well and that they can keep our neighbor’s windows so clean, whereas, our servants aren’t like that. The temptation would be to invite them to switch and come over and work with us instead by offering to pay them a little bit more money. A friendship is going to be destroyed. Don’t do it.
And we’re not to covet our neighbor’s animals. This is referring to their possessions. We’re not to covet their Porsche, or their motorcycle or whatever it might be. We’re not to look at their boat and think, “Oh, if I had a boat…” A boat creates an empty billfold. Why do people call Palos Verdes, Hamburger Hill? Because when a person moves up there, all they can afford are hamburgers. There’s a price…it goes back and forth.
So we are not to covet. We are not to look at another woman when we already have a beautiful wife. We’re not to look at another person’s boat, when we have a little boat in our bathtub we can play with. We’re not to look at our neighbor’s toys—a BMW or a VW. It’s all the same. They’re both made in Germany—same thing, no biggie—one goes faster and one goes slower.
In the Greek translation, the word covet means to grasp. It means, very simply, to reach out after; I have to have it; I need it. It means to crave a thing. In the Bible, it says cleave, or crave something. It means that we’re going to put contact cement on our faces and we’re going to put contact cement on the boat, we’re going to wait ten minutes and stick our faces in the middle of the boat. We’re going to be cemented to this boat. All we can see, think, and talk about is the boat. Don’t crave it.
How much more do we really need? What do we have to have? We lust after each other’s possessions. Why do we do it? We do it because we have to have, we want, we need, we don’t want to be left out. We covet and that’s why we steal—I have to have it. We covet, that’s why we commit adultery—I need to be satisfied. We covet and that’s why we murder—I’m sick of you, get out of my life. We covet and that’s why we disregard other people—I’m going to put you down because I have the ability.
Coveting deals with the inside of the heart. I believe that America’s problem today is coveting and it cannot be healed by us. It can only be healed by Christ. It can only be healed by a revival. And this is why we have conflicts between governments and countries. This is why the nations are coming against each other, because they want what they don’t have and they want more and more territory. If we can get inside of a man and change his heart, then we have a chance. What we need in America and what we need in our lives is a rediscovery of Jesus Christ.
There are four things that we need to examine: 1) The concern about coveting. 2) What is the cause of this coveting? 3) What is the curse when we do covet? And 4) What is the cure?
The concern for coveting: Jesus warned us in Luke 12:15, “And He said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’” In other words, we need to guard our hearts—protect everything that goes on inside our hearts. It’s the junk we add into our hearts. It’s the desiring for things, the ambition for other things. Mark said in chapter 7:21–22, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness...”
Jesus said in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…” In other words, we have need of nothing else. Well, why do we want? Although it’s painful to admit—when we are wrong, we want to go shopping; we want to go out and buy things; we want to do certain things. Now, we can also be really right with God and have money, so we want to invest. That’s a whole different ballgame. But if God tells us to sell it or give it away, would we do it. If we have trouble getting rid of it, we shouldn’t even start it. In other words, everything we have, everything that is owned by us was given to us by God. So we have to be obedient to God. God picked some of us out because God knew that some would listen to His will. There are certain people in the body whom God has blessed. They just understand it; they can do it. But it’s not just for them. It’s for them to be blessed, it’s for them to enjoy, but it’s all for them to do something with.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous…” A person that covets does not see God, nor does he see God’s people. He only sees himself. So a man who is possessed by himself doesn’t care about God’s people and doesn’t care about God. He’s like the farmer in the parable that Jesus shared in chapter 12 of the book of Luke. The farmer had said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’” The danger is that the more we have, the greater chance that it will take our hearts away from God. And what happens is that as we begin to fill our lives with the things of this world, there is a tendency to drift away from the Lord and have new friends who do not live according to the same standards. We have now compromised our lives. If you can hold your compromise to nothing and not compromise, God will bless you. But there are warnings…be careful and don’t allow it to get into your heart. Out of the heart comes these thoughts—I need a new car; I need a new home; we need to decorate…why? Is the real issue decorating or is the real problem our relationship with each other? Are we doing what we’re doing to try to feel better, or are we doing great in our relationship and we just like to have a nicer looking home?
The cause for coveting: “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12) In other words, if I measure myself, compare myself, or weigh myself, it’s not the same. Do not compare. If I look at Billy Graham—I’m never going to be like him. If you look at me, thank God you’re not me—you’re better. It’s best not to compare me to anyone or anything else. We dare not compare ourselves, number ourselves, or measure ourselves. What do some pastors do? They look at their church’s size, they compare and look at other churches, and they are so bugged so that they are not teaching the Word of God. Teach, and God will bring the people. Do not compare.
The Apostle James says in James 4:1, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” Why are you fighting with your wife or your kids? You’re fighting possibly because someone is lusting. I’m right; he’s right; they’re right. Hey, you’re all wrong and God is right. We fight…we lust…why are we at war? We’re at war because we’re going after different things; we’re lusting after more power and more things. James 4:2 says, “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” In other words, we have to get it; we have to pull the strings; we have to make it happen, even when we don’t pray. Just pray. Just ask God to put the family back together.
In 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…” Money is not the root of all evil, the love of money is the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong with money. But the love of money causes people to want more. It pulls us away. John says that it’s because of our flesh, “ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life…” (1 John 2:15-16) That’s what we have—we’re lusting. “I want to drive this vehicle so that I can look good.” Why would we want to spend fifty five thousand dollars just so we can look cool?
This is the curse—coveting. It blinds us to God’s Word. There’s nothing wrong with the stock market, but if we play it, remember, we can be on it twenty-four/seven. We’re going to be constantly looking at it, checking it, moving investments around, doing this and doing that—it’s gambling. Many have made millions, but many have also experienced losses. Many people who are rich put a little bit aside and they gamble with that. It’s just another sophisticated way of gambling.
Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” So when we’re going after this and looking at that, checking this and that, trying to decide how we can do this, and how we can do that, are we truly seeking God? If we seek God, all the things that Matthew indicated in Matthew 6:31—our concerns for what we shall eat, what we shall drink, and what we shall wear, are going to be provided to us. Joshua 1:8 says, “If you meditate upon me day and night then you’re going to have success; then you’re going to prosper” (paraphrased). So when we put God first in our lives, then God is going to bring it in and open the heavens and we will not be able to contain it.
Coveting also blinds us from God’s will. Ezekiel 33:31says, “So they come to you as people do (the church here at South Bay), they sit before you (Pastor Steve) as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them (listen to them); for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain (going after things that they can buy and have).
Coveting blinds us from God’s work. Exodus 18:21is a great verse for leadership. “Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness and place such over them…” If having material things is in our hearts, we’re going to be talking about it. We need to have this, we need to have that. What does God want us talking about?—Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Coveting blinds us from God’s wonder. In Hebrews 13:5 it says, “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have.” In other words, the substance of our lives—be careful because it will blind us from God’s Word. It will take us out of God’s will. It will take us away from the work of God in our lives and it will rob us of the worship of God.
What’s the cure? The cure for this thing is to control our affections. It says in Colossians 3:1, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.” Set your affections on things above…put your life above. Aother cure would be to control our anger. Matthew 5:22a says, “But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger.” We should not hate our neighbors. What can we do to help them? My wife is my neighbor in a way. What can I do to help her? Whoever is outside of my body is my neighbor. My wife, my children—am I going to be giving or am I going to be taking? Am I going to be selfish or am I going to be sacrificial?
So, as a cure, we can control our affections, our anger, and now our attitude. We have to control our attitude. Ephesians 5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us…” In other words, we have to go after the things in our hearts, deep in our hearts, knowing that God’s will is so important. People do what they want. It doesn’t work that way. We are to do what He wants. We have to deal with this selfish, coveting, greedy attitude that we have. We need to be content exactly where we’re at; with who we have and what we have and who we are.
