Summary: As soon as you desire anything that is not able to become yours by legitimate labor or purchase, recognize you are on dangerous ground, and move. This vice of coveting is really only a good thing gone after the wrong object.

A French taxi cab driver once played a joke on Sir

Arthur Conon Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He

had driven Sr. Arthur from a station to a hotel, and when he

received his fare he said, "Merci, Mr. Conon Doyle." "Why,

how do you know my name?" asked Sr. Author. "Well sir,"

he replied, "I have seen in the papers that you were coming

from the South of France to Paris; your general appearance

told me that you were English; your hair had been clearly

last cut by a barber of the South of France. I put these

indications together and guessed at once that it was you."

Sir Author was astounded and said, "So little evidence to go

on. This is very remarkable." "Well," said the driver,

"There was also the fact that your name was on your

luggage."

This clue, though mentioned last, was far from the least.

Often this is the case, and we have a saying to express it, "

last but not least." Sometimes we save the best for the last.

However, we also tend to associate the last with the least.

We attach degrees of merit and value to position. The

bottom man on the totem pole is a phase we use to describe a

negative position. When a list of names is made up, it is

necessary to put them in alphabetical order or someone will

be offended by being further down the list, or most

humiliating of all, they could be last on the list. Last is

associated with least so often, this could be interpreted as a

slam at your personal worth.

This is subjective nonsense, of course, but it is a fact, and

therefore, it is good for us to see the last from another

perspective. We ought not to have a stereotyped negative

attitude about last things on a list. This false attitude has

affected peoples interest and concern about the last

commandment. It is the commandment least preached on.

After indexing hundreds of volumes of sermons I have not

found a single sermon on this text. I must confess that I also

felt a tendency to by pass it. If it was the fourth or fifth I am

sure this feeling would not arise, but being tenth and last, it

gets associated with the concept of the least important. It

takes a conscious effort to overcome this false perspective,

and discover that the last is not the least. This caboose on

the train of duty is of primary importance, and is essential if

we hope to live the righteous life.

Paul in the great love chapter writes, "Now abideth faith,

hope, love these three, but the greatest of these is love."

Love is last, but it is not least. It is, instead, the greatest.

The last days of Jesus are the days of greatest value, and

they fill the bulk of the Gospel records. More sermons are

preached on His last words than on all the others. It is the

last, the end, the conclusion, the climax, that gives meaning

to all that has gone before. The last is not least in God's

listings of values.

So it is with the last of the ten commandments. It is not

least, but goes deeper than the rest. It gets to the heart of

the matter of sin by getting to the heart of men of sin. This

commandment takes us behind the scenes to the very origin

of sin. If we heed this one we can nip sin in the bud before it

bears any of its bitter fruit. This is the commandment of

prevention. Moody called this the root extraction. It gets at

the root of sin which is covetousness. Paul said that the love

of money is the root of all evil. It is not money that is evil,

but the love of it. The covetousness that turns one to an

idolater. If a man does not stop sin at its root, he will be led

to violate all of the other commandments. A Jewish

commentary says, "He who violates the last commandment,

violates all of them."

If covetousness is not brought under control it will lead to

idolatry, for desire becomes the highest value in your life,

and thus, your God. If you fail in number ten, all of the

others will break like ice sickles cut loose from their base.

Paul calls the covetousness man an idolater in Eph. 5:5, and

in Col. 3:5 he writes, "Evil desire and greed, which amounts

to idolatry." Naboth's garden was coveted by Ahab. He so

desired it that he murdered to get it. Coveting will lead to

stealing, lying, or murder, for there is no other way to get

what doesn't belong to you except by one sin or another.

There is no non-sinful way to satisfy a desire for someone

else's wife or property. If sin is conquered at the point of

coveting, it prevents all of the other sins. That is why this

last is not least, for it is at this stage that one can gain the

victory over all the temptations of Satan. Let the devil get

his foot in at this point, and he will soon have you under his

foot. We keep our foot on his neck when we are fully aware

that our desires are the main battle field.

The Hebrew word for covet does not just mean to admire

or to wish to have. It means, says Andrew Greely, "To lay

plans to take." It is not wrong to admire a neighbor's wife

or possessions, or even wish you had equally desirable

things, but it is forbidden to lay plans to possess what

belongs to others. Once this sin of coveting gets a hold on a

culture, it is doomed. Israel came to this point, and had to

suffer the wrath of God. In Jer. 6:13 the Lord says, "For

from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for

unjust gain, and from prophet to priest, everyone deals

falsely." Covetousness became their god, and God rejected

them in judgment. Billy Graham said, "The great sin of

America is greed and avarice." These are synonyms for

covetousness. If this be so, we stand at a place of high risk.

Temptation and desire are two different things. I may be

tempted to take something not my own, but not want to do

it. I chose not to yield to temptation. Temptation is the step

that precedes coveting. Temptation is no sin at all, but if I

yield to it and begin to covet, then I am in the realm of sin,

but still in territory where victory can be gained without

loss. I have let Satan get his foot into the door, but have not

yet opened the door. Temptation is the knock at the door,

and coveting is letting him get his foot in. When you invite

him all the way in, that is when you fall into sin. So you can

see how important it is to begin the battle before you get to

the stage of coveting.

This commandment reaches where the long arm of the

law can never reach. Man can never make laws concerning

his internal nature. He is limited to suppressing and

punishing external conduct. God alone can forbid coveting,

for God alone can see the heart, and He alone can change it.

This last commandment is really the bridge that spans the

gap between the Old Testament emphasis on external

conduct, and the New Testament emphasis on internal

motives. The more we consider the implications of this last

commandment, the more we will recognize that it is last but

not least.

Pliny the Elder, centuries ago, said, "From the end spring

new beginnings." So it is with the end of the

commandments. Their principles thrust us into a whole new

world of beginnings, and endless adventures in the war

against sin, and the crusade for Christ likeness. One of the

adventures is to explore the reality of the positive side

of this vice which can also be a virtue.

I. THE VIRTUE OF COVETING.

This is actually essential to a full Christian life.

Not recognizing this could lead to the

Buddhist view that all desire is evil, and the good life,

therefore, is to eliminate desire. The Christian view is that

desires are of God, and when they are fulfilled in accordance

with His will, they comprise the basic joys of life. Paul in I

Cor. 12:31 urges believers to covet earnestly the best gifts.

Jesus urged us to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We

are to have strong desires for all the good gifts of God. We

say sometimes, "I covet your prayers." We mean by this, we

earnestly desire the value of your intercession.

We are to covet our time and use it wisely for eternal

values, and not waste it. Joseph Addison wrote, "Nothing

lies on our hands with such uneasiness as time. Wretched

and thoughtless creatures! In the only place where

covetousness were a virtue we turn prodigals." He was

right, but he overstates his case, for there are other areas

where coveting is a virtue. In fact, it is right to covet

everything that can be legitimately obtained and liberally

used for the good of man and the glory of God.

It is the coveting instinct that makes man rise above the

animal in his progress. Henry George in Progress And

Poverty writes of man, "...he is the only animal whose

desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never

satisfied. The wants of every other living thing are

uniformed and fixed. The ox of today aspires to no more

than did the ox when man first yoked him. The sea gull of

the English Channel, who poises himself above the swift

steamer, wants no better food or lodging than the gulls than

circle around as the keels of Caesar's galleys first grated on a

British beach. Of all that nature offers them, be it ever so

abundant, all living things save man can take, and care for,

only enough to supply wants which are definite and fixed."

Man is made to climb higher and higher, and he could not

and would not do so without the desire to acquire the more

that God would have him reach for. All the vast resources of

God's creation would go unexplored, and we would live on

one dead level materially and spiritually without desire, or

the virtue of coveting. It is a sin not to covet the higher

things that God has for us. But we need to look further at

the negative side.

II. THE VICE OF COVETING.

The evil is not in the desire, but in the way the desire is satisfied,

or in the desire being focused on an object one can never justly

possess. If I see a picture on your wall, and like it, and desire one for my

wall, and go and purchase one, that is not a sin. But if I

desire to possess your picture, then I am guilty of the sin that

is forbidden. This desire leads to theft, or even other sins

such as lying or envy. When the desire to possess is also the

desire to dispossess another, it is the vice this commandment

forbids. Even if you don't act on a forbidden desire, it is an

inner sin, and to be aware of this, and to fight the battle on

this level, would enable us to avoid all of the sins that violate

the law of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

David could have avoided all of the sins of adultery, lying,

murder, and all the heart aches these brought, if he had

obeyed this commandment, and nipped sin in the bud when

it was just inner desire. Edward VIII of Great Britain

abdicated his throne for a woman he coveted. Archbishop

Temple said, "The occasion for Edward's choice ought never

to have arisen. It has happened to many a man before now

to find himself falling in love with another man's wife. That

is the moment of critical decision, and the right decision is

that they should cease to meet before passion is so developed

as to create an agonizing conflict between love and duty."

As soon as you desire anything that is not able to become

yours by legitimate labor or purchase, recognize you are on

dangerous ground, and move. This vice of coveting is really

only a good thing gone after the wrong object. Or it can also

be a good thing gone to an extreme. For example, it is good

to desire to eat; it is a sign of health, but it is a sin to be a

glutton. Here is a good gift of God which by excess has

crossed the line dividing virtue and vice. This is true in

many ways. It is good to rest, but a sin to be lazy. It is good

to be calm, but a sin to be indifferent. It is good to be

courageous, but a sin to be careless. So also, it is good to

desire many things, but a sin when those things belong to others.

We cannot begin to cover all of the evil this world suffers

because of covetousness. Most all wars can be attributed to

this sin. James says this is the cause of war, and some, like

the Fredrick the Great, were even honest enough to admit it.

When he was going to declare war he asked his secretary to

write the proclamation. The secretary began, "Whereas in

the providence of God...." "Stop that lying," Fredrick

thundered. "Simply say Fredrick wants more land."

Seldom is it admitted like this, but this is the origin of war.

If men are convinced that this life is all there is, and that

materialism is all they can hope for, they have nothing to

lose by fighting a war to get all they can. Materialism is a

philosophy and covetousness is the driving motive to fulfill

that philosophy of getting all you can regardless of who it

hurts. This sin is the greatest vice, for it leads to all other

sins. Finally lets consider-

III. VICTORY OVER COVETOUSNESS.

Law can never gain the victory. The rich young ruler obeyed all the

commandments, but he could not escape the clutches of

covetousness, and so he was still a slave bound by the chains

of sin. A man can go far under the law, but he can never get

passed this last hurdle. It is a catchall that condemns all

men as hopeless sinners. All law can do is punish sin, it

cannot prevent sin. The law can do as the ancients did with

a man whose covetousness led to strife and war. They

poured molten gold down his throat. This got rid of the

patient, but it did not cure the disease. If the fountain is

polluted, it is the fountain that must be cleaned, and,

therefore, this last commandment thrusts us right into the

New Testament plan of God.

Sin originates in the heart where the law cannot touch.

Therefore, man needs a new heart. Oehler, the theologian

wrote, "The fulfillment of the law is only complete when the

heart is sanctified." We know that only the blood of Christ

can cleanse the heart and dissolve the clot of covetousness

that threatens to destroy us all. The love of Christ does not

suppress desire, but lifts our desires to a higher level so that

we can set our affections on things above. We may at times

still lust for the lowly, but we counteract that by coveting

God's best-the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. This last

commandment shows us where the real sin problem lies, and

compels us to submit to the only known cure which is faith

in Christ. Thus, it leads the famished soul from the husks of

the law to the feast and abundance of the Gospel. As

number ten, it comes at the end, but though it is last, it is not

least.