The Tenth Commandment

“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 is your neighbor’s.” -Exodus 20:17

 When I first came to know the Lord, at the age of 23, I was most concerned about stopping those actions in my life the Bible called sin. So, as I evaluated my life I thought I didn’t have to change my behavior much.     Of course I realized I needed to cut back on my alcohol consumption,  because drunkenness was a sin but     other than that I thought I was a pretty good person before I was saved so there is really not much to change. That was until I heard a sermon on my thought life.  The pastor preached on several different passages. You have heard that it was said,  ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed   adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28). It was at that point I realized as a Christian I could no longer look at adult books or movies. But, it didn’t stop there. He went on to say that even if you didn’t harm someone physically you still sinned if you hated them. Whoever says he is   in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness ( 1 John 2:9). I realized my thoughts were just as sinful as my actions.

That is what God has in mind with the Tenth              Commandment. This  commandment addresses what happens in our hearts and minds and it makes clear  that the Lord forbids those sins no one sees. It deals most specifically with the sins of the heart, showing us that though we might refrain from all outward acts of sin, murder, adultery, theft, and idolatry,  but we have failed to keep His law when our hearts are filled with jealousy.

Covetousness can lead to a host of sins. There are plenty of examples in scripture. The first example we see is in the Garden when Adam and Eve coveted God’s knowledge   of good and evil and ate the forbidden fruit in order to make themselves wise. King David gazed upon             Bathsheba he lusted after her in his heart and coveted another man’s wife before he ever committed the       physical act of adultery.

How do we deal with the sin of covetousness? The following is from Tabletalk Magazine : “The answer to   covetousness is not the absence of all desire, as in  Buddhism, but rather the cultivation of contentment       (1 Tim. 6:6–10). It can be a long journey on the way to   discovering how to be content in every circumstance,   but if we are endeavoring to be grateful to God for every blessing He has given to us, then we will be less inclined to covet that which is not ours. This day, let us be  thankful to the Lord for the blessings we now possess.”

Pastor Mark