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.
