thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." And then in Romans 7, verses 7-13, we have Paul speaking about his experience regarding this commandment. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. and the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me, by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly or exceeding sinful." And then turn over to Romans 13, 8-14. Oh, no man anything but to love one another. For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." And then turn with me in 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 6. Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy. Chapter 6, verse 7 through 11, And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drowned men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness." And then on to verse 17. "...Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy." That they do good. that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. Thus ends the reading of God's holy book. and inspired Word. Now, this Lord's Day morning, we come to look at the Ten Commandments again, and we begin to take up the Tenth Commandment. And this morning, we come to consider particularly the sins forbidden in the Tenth Commandment. And Lord willing, in two weeks, we'll consider the duties required in the Tenth Commandment. We've looked at the first table of the law. Early last year, we considered the object, the matter, the manner, and the time of worship in the first four commandments. And then for a number of weeks, we've been considering the second table of the law, Commandments 5-10. And we've seen that in the Commandments 5-10, we have the sanctity of authority, of life, of marriage, of property, and then of name or credibility spoken of. And here in the 10th Commandment, we really have a summary commandment that kind of summarizes what's at the root of sins of the fifth through the ninth commandment in particular. John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion said this regarding this commandment, as he, as God has forbidden our minds to be inclined and led into anger, hatred, adultery, robbery, and lying, he now prohibits them, speaking of our minds, from being prompted thereto. He's already told us we're not to commit all these things and now in the 10th commandment God says don't even think about lying, stealing, committing adultery, despising authority. Don't even contemplate it. And so, this morning we'll consider the sins forbidden in the commandment. And I want us to consider the command itself before we look at the implications of the command or see how the commandment's worked out in other exhortations, other commands in the Scripture. First, consider the words of Exodus 20, verse 17 themselves. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. First, we have to understand what the word covet in this verse means if we're to understand this verse at all. This word covet means literally to delight in or to desire. A form of this word is used in Song of Song, chapter 5, verse 16, where we read, speaking of Christ, He is altogether lovely. It's the same root word meaning Christ is altogether to be desired, or to be coveted. So we see this word used regarding legitimate objects. Christ Himself, it's appropriate to desire Christ, and yet clearly in this context we see that there are some things that we're not to desire. There are some things that are unlawful for us to desire. Well, what are those things? The commandment is very explicit. It uses the word, thy, thy neighbors, three times. And it uses His four times. It tells us what those objects are that we're not to be coveting, or desiring, or to be delighting in thoughts of. And it's not exhaustive, but God gives us some specifics so that we'd recognize there are all kinds of things that are our neighbors, or there's all kinds of things that might be appropriate for us to have, they might be lawful for us to have, but God has not presently given them to us. And so we can deduce that those also are inappropriate for us to desire when God has not ordained us to have them. James Durham in his Commentary on the Ten Commandments said, the difference of this command from the former commands is not in the object, but in the act. Lust. In other words, The object of a violation of the 6th commandment might be the same object that's in view when we're lusting or considering violating the 6th commandment or the 7th commandment. The object's the same. But in the 10th commandment, it is the very thought, the very lust towards it, the very delight in even contemplating committing that sin. I also want us to think about the repetition of the tenth commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5. In Deuteronomy 5 verse 21, we have the tenth commandment repeated, but it's not verbatim. Here in Moses' last sermon to the people of God before they come into the promised land under Joshua's leadership, As he repeats the Ten Commandments, it says, neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor. So we should desire our neighbor's wife. We should desire something that says we shouldn't covet his house. We shouldn't covet or desire. But what's very interesting is the word that's translated desire in Deuteronomy 5.21 is the same word that's translated covet in Exodus 20 verse 18. And the word that's translated covet here in Deuteronomy 5.21 in the authorized version is another word which means to wish or to lust. I think it's a synonym of the word that's used in Exodus 20, verse 17, but it's not the same word. So we're not to desire or we're not to wish or to lust after. We're not to want. We're not to delight in something in our minds that is not ours. That's not lawful to desire in or that might be lawful, but is not presently ours to have. Here it speaks in Deuteronomy 5.21 of wife, of house and field, of slaves, and of ox, ass, and then goes on to say, or anything. In other words, God lists some specifics and then He says, or anything. In other words, it encompasses all things that others have that are not yours. So, it covers the seventh commandment. We're not to desire or covet someone's wife. It covers the 8th commandment. We're not to want their house or their field. It covers the 6th commandment, I believe, when you think about slaves or business capital. It's really speaking of someone's authority, their place in society. We're not to lust or to desire their place in society, their unique place in the hierarchy, in the worldly government or in industry. or anything that isn't by neighbors. That would include our neighbor's authority. It would include his good name. Now, why do we covet? Why do we covet? Well, first we covet because of indwelling sin. Certainly, the flesh, sinful flesh, is one of our enemies. We're going to consider that as we look at James 1.14 a little bit later in the study. But I would ask you, do little children need to learn how to covet? If you give one of them a toy and another one sees a toy that they've never had before, they've never played with, do you have to teach that other child to covet after the other child's toy? We come forth from the womb lying and coveting. We don't have to learn these behaviors. They come from indwelling sin. But we also have two other enemies. That is, the world and the devil. In 1 John 2.16 we read, "...for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world." So, we have a desire based on indwelling sin that still remains in us even after conversion. But we have the world that's enticing us to these things. We see these things before our eyes, but the world also would suggest that the partake of these things that are not lawfully ours would be a benefit to us. When in fact, God says, no, that's not the case. to partake of something that's not yours, not rightfully yours, either by actually obtaining it unlawfully or even contemplating it, daydreaming about having it, is not profitable for your soul. It is in fact hindering your spiritual growth and your spiritual welfare. We also have a third enemy and that's the devil. In Ephesians 6.16, Paul speaks of the fiery darts of the wicked one. The wicked one can shoot fiery darts. He can shoot thoughts at us. He can place thoughts in our head that we either then embrace and then we become guilty of or we either refuse them. Sometimes it's very difficult and sometimes I'm not convinced it's that profitable necessarily to try to evaluate, hey, did this thought that I refused or this thought that I was enticed by in bit debate. Did it come from Satan directly? Did it come from my indwelling sin? It might be obvious. It might not be. And oftentimes it's not that profitable really to know because ultimately it is your indwelling sin and it's your responsibility that you took the bait no matter How the bait got there. Whether the bait got there through your indwelling sin, or Satan, or one of his cohorts, really doesn't matter. William Ames said this, he said, Covetousness means that desire which first instigates and excites the mind to yearn for the good things of our neighbors, although it has yet occurred to us how to get them by unlawful means. You see, it's that thought that wants it. That's lust. Now, once we start contemplating how we're going to obtain it, now we've entered into violating the 5th or the 6th or the 7th or the 8th or the 9th commandment. But it's that yearning, that love or lust desire for that which is not ours, which God's not been pleased to give us. Now, let's consider the full implication of the command as we've considered the command itself in Exodus 20 and then in Deuteronomy 5. I think the larger catechism, again, is very thorough in its discussion on the commandments. Consider question 148. What are the sins forbidden in the Tenth Commandment? The answer they give is the shortest one in explaining the commandments. The sins forbidden in the Tenth Commandment are discontentment with our own estate, envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor, together with all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is His." They don't give quite the list that they do as they explain most of the other commandments and the prohibitions, but in these few sins that they subsume under, The covetousness, I think we have so many sins that we are guilty of. First, the sin of discontentment or being discontent with our own estate. Consider 1 Corinthians 10.10. There Paul, as he contemplates the sins of the people of God in the wilderness wanderings in the book of Exodus and Numbers, says to us, says to the Corinthians and thus to us, neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. In other words, don't murmur towards God and what He's chosen to give you. Don't get disappointed with manna just because that's what God keeps providing. Just because He provides you a good thing regularly doesn't mean you should grow discontent with it or murmur against it. I think in Isaiah 57-20 we have a graphic description of the heart, the soul of the wicked one that's given to discontentment. There it says, "...the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." You find your soul in that kind of state. Unrestful. And do you acknowledge that when you are covetous, when you're desirous, when you begin to give yourself over to thoughts of possessing that which God has not been pleased to give you, do you not find that that's the state of your soul? Disturbed, troubled, like waters that cast up mire and dirt, like a troubled sea. There's no calm. There's no peace. Let me give you just several examples of individuals guilty of this sin. Ahab in 1 Kings 21.4, he wanted Naboth's vineyard. It began with his lust for the vineyard first before he and his wicked wife conspired to obtain it by unlawful means. Consider also Mordecai in Esther 5.13. He was the second man in command. He had everything you would think he could want. But the fact that one Jew wouldn't bow down to Mordecai. Oh, excuse me, it's not Mordecai himself, is it? It's Haman. And Mordecai wouldn't bow down to Haman. Haman had it all, you would think. And yet, this Jew would not bow down to him religiously, and so he was discontent. He had to get that man's life. As much as he had, he wasn't happy with that until he could kill that man. And he wouldn't be happy until he killed that man and then all the seed of the juice. So, discontentment. I think there are two other sins that are related to discontentment that I think we ought to speak to briefly. And they are, I think, two very debilitating sins. Two sins that, if we are guilty of, significantly hinder our ability to run the Christian race. The first one is worry. Worry. Jesus speaks about worry in Matthew 6, 24-34. He tells us we're not to worry about what we'll eat next, what we'll wear. Our Heavenly Father provides these things. We're not to worry about them. We see Martha worrying about things that are important in Luke 10, 38-42. Her service to the Master and His colleagues overruns its bounds and she fails to recognize what's more important and to be able to sit at the Savior's feet and learn from Him. She's distracted. She's doing good things, but takes it too far and thus her attitude in doing the good things is no longer healthy. And Jesus has to correct her and rectify her thinking on the matter. Consider Philippians 4, 6 and 7. Be careful or be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And then he goes on in verse 7, and the peace of God will guard or literally garrison your heart and your mind in Jesus Christ. He says, don't be careful. Be careful for nothing. There's nothing that you should be anxious for. You can't come up with something that it's worthwhile to be anxious about. He says there's nothing that's worthy of anxiety. But, everything ought to be bathed in prayer and supplication and thanksgiving. as our prayers are heard. Let your requests be made known unto God with praise, with supplication, with thanksgiving. And the peace of God will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. When we pray, when we ask God to assist us, provide for us, to give us food convenient for us, to provide our daily bread, then we can have this peace. This peace of God. And this peace of God then guards our hearts and our minds. It guards our inner life. So there were not in constant inner turmoil. Turmoil created by unfulfilled lusts and desires. I think that's one debilitating sin that falls under discontentment. I think there's another one and that is fear. It's still related to the future. To worry is to not know how the future is going to fall out. We don't know what God is going to provide or not provide for us tomorrow, or next week, or next year. As individuals, as families, as a church, as a nation, we don't know. We know if we're believers that God has promised to work all things together for our good, but we've come to learn if we've been in the Christian life enough that God working all things together for our good doesn't mean that everything is wonderful, that nothing's painful, We've learned to live in the context of joy and of grief at the same time. We have God's providence that grieve us. We have God's providences that bring us joy and fulfillment. And yet, God's working both of those for our spiritual welfare and our growth in Christ. But worry is thinking about those things and being anxious about what's going to happen. But fear is being concerned about the future in terms of how people or how others are going to respond to us and to our behaviors. Consider what Zechariah said at the birth of his son John in Luke 1.65 as he suggests that John being born and being the forerunner of Christ is demonstrating the fulfillment that God is now carrying out what He swore to Father Abraham in bringing His covenant promises to fulfillment. He says that we might serve Him, that we might serve God without fear. Clearly, Zacharias isn't saying that now in the New Covenant we're going to serve God without holy reverence to God. Now, the fear of God is not wiped out in the New Covenant. But what he's saying is we're going to serve Him without fear of our enemies. We're going to serve Him with the confidence that we are victorious. We will overcome because we fight under Christ's banner. Because we're united to Him and He's the captain of our salvation. Therefore, we can fight with confidence. We can fight knowing we don't lose. That's a whole different story in a battle, isn't it? To fight with confidence rather than to fight not knowing how the battle is going to come out. We can fight the battle of the Christian life without fear. Consider 2 Timothy 1.7, God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. He's telling timid Timothy, in the midst of having to fight much false doctrine at Ephesus, he says, you haven't been given a spirit of fear. This fear that's in you is not of God, is what he said. God's given a spirit of power, of authority, and this authority is practiced in love and in a sound mind, in a sobriety. Not hasty in making decisions or evaluating things on limited evidence. But it's moving out in confidence out of a motive of love to God and love to the brethren with the sobriety of thought. In Matthew 10.26 we see that we're not to fear men, we're to fear God. We're not to fear those that can kill the body but can do nothing to the soul. In Philippians 1.14, we read about those that are now preaching the Gospel without fear. Paul says, he is for the Praetorian guard. In Hebrews 13.6, we also have something spoken of regarding the grace of holy confidence and boldness. Hebrews 13.6. Let me read that. So we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." If we recognize God to be with us, we will not fear what men might do. We won't be concerned about their little persecution, whatever it might be. So, we've considered discontentment, worry, fear. There is a fourth sin under this commandment, and that is envy. We are not to envy. Paul says in Titus 3.3 that those individuals that Titus would be speaking to in Crete, but obviously relates it to all those that come out of paganism. It's all of us who were born in sin. He says that we live in malice and envy. So, that's the kind of context of living that you were involved in before you were Christ's. You lived in it. It was so much part of your life that Paul could say we lived in it. And yet, Paul could say to the Galatians in Galatians 5.26, let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. This is a sin that even professed Christians can commit. Though we wallowed in it, as non-believers. Paul doesn't say that sin has been totally eradicated from Christians. He's saying in these four churches in southern Galatia, he recognized there were those that were desirous of vain glory. They were desirous of being built up and being high and mighty. And they were thus envying one another. And they were provoking one another because of this Pride and this envy led to provoking and led to strife. Consider James 3, 14 and 16. James says this was apparently common amongst the dispersed Jews as they were dispersed throughout Judea. And in James 3, 13 and 14, we read this. Actually, I'll read 13 through 16. Who is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthy, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." Here in this section, James is contrasting earthly wisdom with heavenly wisdom. He's saying there's too many of you that are operating under the paradigm, the structure of worldly wisdom. You're envying one another. You're jockeying for position. And it's leading to strife amongst the people of God. Consider also Proverbs 14.30. There we read, "...a sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones." Have you ever considered that the Scripture teaches that envy will lead to physical effects? A sound heart is the life of the flesh. But our inner life affects our outer life. If we're eaten up with envy in our inner person, it will affect our very physical health. We are psychosomatic beings. Our souls and our bodies, we can make distinctions, but they are connected, if we're alive. It affects our countenance. Consider some examples of envy in the Scripture. Consider the priests and the Pharisees in Mark 15.10. It says that they delivered Him, Christ, for envy. What was at the heart of the leaders of God's people delivering Christ up to be crucified? It was that He had a unique following. Grace and truth were on His lips. And there was a group of disciples that were eating up His teaching. And they were envious of it. They were envious that they could be outsmarted in the Scriptures. Consider also the psalmist in Psalm 73, verses 3 and 4 in particular, where the psalmist is envious of the wicked. When he looks at the wicked without the eyes of faith, it looks like the wicked has everything. And whatever they do, it doesn't seem like God brings those things into judgment. Things seem to be going well with them. It's not until the psalmist says that he goes to the courts of the Lord, until he comes to God's temple, that he begins to see things right again. He begins to have God's perspective on things. He realizes that the wicked's feet are in a slippery place. We read fairly recently when we read through the book of Obadiah of the envy of the Edomites. In Obadiah 12, God condemns the Edomites for joying and rejoicing in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and his armies. We've seen the sins of discontentment, worry, fear, envy. Consider also grieving at the good of others. I think this is similar to envy. It's closely related. In Psalm 112, 9 and 10, we read this of the righteous man. His horn shall be exalted with honor. It goes on to say in verse 10, the wicked shall see it. and be grieved. He shall gnash with his teeth." When God exalts His people, the wicked are not pleased with that. Whether the wicked are outside the visible church or whether they're still in the visible church. They don't glory when God exalts His people. Consider the sin of Sanballat and Tobiah and Nehemiah 2.10. Nehemiah comes and returns with God's people to finish the building of the wall and complete that in protecting God's people. And there in Nehemiah 2.10 we read, "...when Sanballat the Horite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel." They were disappointed that now this people, was going to again be organized by God's called leader. So it's a sin that we can commit as well. We can envy what someone has. We can grieve when they get more and we don't get it. And then we can also consider inordinate affections and what the Westminster divines call motions or actions. Inordinate affections, inordinate motions. What does inordinate mean? If you put the prefix in before something, it means it's something that's beyond. Ordinate comes from the word ordinary. There's not wrong to desire ordinary things, to desire our daily bread. Remember, we saw that the word covet itself isn't necessarily wrong. We can have a delight in the good things that God's given us. We're not to make them gods. You see, we can delight in our wife, but we're not to delight in someone else's wife. So, we can have inordinate or affections, desires that go beyond what's lawful and right, and then we can also act to obtain those things that are beyond what is right to have, to desire. Again, I would contend that once we begin to make a motion, once we begin to be thinking about a way to obtain that which is not lawful for us to have, we have then violated that commandment based on the object that we're trying to obtain. If we're trying to obtain somebody's wife, we've then violated the seventh command. If we're trying to obtain their property, we've violated the eighth. If we're trying to obtain their life, take their life from them, we've violated the sixth. Micah 2, 1-2 and James 4, 1-5 speak about lusts that then lead to actions. But I want us to consider for a few moments inordinate affections. We looked at them in Romans 7, 7-8 as we read that passage. Paul says in Colossians 3, 5, "...mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry." He says these are all the kind of things that we as Christians, now that we're new men in Christ, have to be putting on. He's going to list things that we should be putting on as we become more and more Christ-like. But He says these are things that we've got to mortify. These are things that we've got to kill. He says we've got to kill covetousness. He says covetousness is idolatry. In a sense, I think the tenth commandment takes us right back to the first. If you violate the tenth, you violate the first. You're committing idolatry because you want something that you're sovereign and your father hasn't decided to give you. So it is raising a fist at your God. But I think he uses two words or two things that are synonyms to covetousness, and that is evil concupiscence and inordinate affection. There's desires, there's feelings that we can have that are beyond what's right. And then he also speaks of evil concupiscence. This word is used three times, concupiscence, in the New Testament. It's a compound word and it comes from the word that means upon and the next word that means passion or heart. In its etymology, at the word itself, it doesn't necessarily imply that it's necessarily evil, but in the context in which it's used and translated concupiscence in Romans 7, 8, Colossians 3, 5, and 1 Thessalonians 4, 5, it means evil. It's an evil passion. It's a wicked passion. It's an inordinate affection. We see this in James 1, 14 and 15. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James says that first there's lust. Then that lust is conceived. Then that lust conceived leads to sin and then leads to death. Now, James is not saying that lust that's been conceived is not sin. Lust conceived is a violation of the tenth commandment. Lust conceived that's then carried out in action is a violation of the other commandments. And violations of the other commandments, apart from the mercy of God and Christ, will lead the one that sins to hellfire forever. It will lead to spiritual death. So what he's saying is that the first stirring of a temptation, whether it wells up from our indwelling sin, whether it's a fiery dart from Satan, it matters not. The question is, do we delight in it or are we repulsed by it? You see, if we are not repulsed, but if in fact we delight in it, then we have an evil affection. We have an inordinate affection. Now, if we've chosen to delight in that thought that's arisen in our mind, whether from Satan or from our indwelling sin, if we've chosen to delight in it, then we then either choose to consent to it or not to consent to it. In other words, we either spend some time thinking about it But in thinking about it, we choose not to act on the thought and carry it to the next step. Or, we actually choose to carry it to the next step. But the point is, if we choose to delight rather than to be repulsed, by the first stirring of lust in our heart, eventually we are sinning in all of that thought life and eventually we will give in and then we will not fail to consent but we will in fact consent to that thought and we will carry out what we desire. We will seek to get what is not ours to have. And so Paul in Romans 7 I think is clearly saying, that he learned about his sin, his conversion as he looked at it internally. Yes, we read about it externally in Acts chapter 9. God comes and meets with him on Damascus Road. But in Romans 7, he says, hey, I really didn't get sin. until I started understanding what the tenth commandment was saying. And I started realizing that it wasn't enough just not to consent to these evil thoughts. It was wrong in the first place to be daydreaming and thinking about having things that weren't mine. You see, that was the issue, wasn't it, with the rich young ruler. Jesus runs through the commandments. He says, well, I haven't violated those. It's not to say that He hadn't, but for Him He hadn't recognized that He hadn't. He only covers up to the ninth commandment. Jesus then asks him, He tells him, sell all you have and come follow Me. He's not giving a gospel requirement that every one of His people have to follow. He's getting at the root, at the heart sin of that man. It's not sinful to have possessions. Abraham had plenty of them. Job had plenty of them. Many other of God's people have had plenty of them. But the rich young ruler hoarded them. He couldn't give them up for Christ. He couldn't sell them all for the pearl of great price. He was wedded to them. They were his idols. And so he obviously was given to thoughts in that regard. He was covetous and thus he was idolatrous and was unwilling to come unto Christ. Now, in closing, I think we have to ask ourselves, how do we know if we're covetous? How do we know if we're committing these sins? I mean, obviously, Hopefully, some of us are convicted, all of us are convicted at some level regarding these seven sins. But I think we can ask ourselves these questions. We are covetous, I would contend, when our thoughts are significantly taken up with the world. We can evaluate our thought life. We can ask ourselves, how often are our thoughts heavenly? Do we know anything of heavenly mindedness? Even when we're Thinking about things in the world, do our thoughts transcend the things themselves and do our thoughts enter into things that are eternal? So that we carry out mundane duties still to the glory of God. We can ask ourselves, do we take more pains to get earthly goods than to get heaven? Do we take pains to grow in grace? Or do we take pains just to obtain things that are gone with the using and that we can't take with us? Where's our effort being expended? We can also ask ourselves, where's the majority of our speech? What's it about? Is it about the world or is it about the things of God? Because what we think about, what we act on, what we say is ultimately what is in our heart. It's a little bit hard sometimes to evaluate our heart, but we can evaluate the root by the fruit, can't we? What we say, what we do, what we're thinking about, that tells us whether our heart is set on worldly things or not. I want to close with just four considerations about how dangerous this sin is. This sin is a subtle sin. Paul could say in 1 Thessalonians 2.5 that he didn't have a cloak of covetousness. What he's saying is sometimes there's covetousness that's covered up. He's saying, I'm a minister who's not only not covetous, I'm not covering up covetousness. It's not just that you don't see covetousness in me, there's none in me. I'm not covetous and have developed a way to hide it from you and hide it from myself. It's subtle. Sometimes it's not recognized for what it is. It's easy to just think you're frugal. I'm just frugal. But it might be much more than frugality. It's a subtle sin. Frugality is not sin. but being anxious is, hoarding is. It's also a lying sin. All sin is lying, but in Matthew 13, verse 22, we learn about the deceitfulness of riches. Riches lie. And you can have them and think everything's fine, and yet the sin is lying to you about its sinfulness. It's deceptive. It's also A mother's sin. 1 Timothy 6.11, the root or the love of money is the root of all evil. This verse could be better translated, the love of money is a root of all evil. Paul is not saying that all wickedness in the world comes from the love of money. What he's saying is the lust for money can lead to all other kinds of sins. It's a mother sin. If you give in to that one, it produces all kinds of other ones. Because then you're going to have to lie, you're going to cheat, you're going to steal, you might have to kill to get what you want. He's not saying that the love of power isn't the root of all evil, or the love of pleasure isn't. He's saying all those kind of lusts for possessions, for power, for pleasure. They lead to all kinds of other sins. So, it's a subtle sin. It's a lying sin. It's a mother sin. Thomas Watson said, covetousness is a mother sin. It is a plain breach of every one of the Ten Commandments. It's also a damning sin. Ephesians 5.5, Paul says, For this ye know, Paul's not telling the Ephesian church something that they hadn't heard before. That no whoremonger, no unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. He says you don't get there if you're a whoremonger. You don't get there if you're unclean. You don't get there if you're covetous. If you're covetous, you're an idolater, and there's no inheritance. You don't get just a small parcel. You get nothing of the inheritance of God and of Christ. Nothing. But who is like unto God that pardons iniquity? Praise be to God that He sent His Son so that He might submit to authority perfectly. That He might not kill and keep the sick. That He might not commit adultery or even lust. That He might not steal. That He didn't speak evil of any. And He also never thought about committing any of those sins. Praise be to God. that God sent His only Beloved Son to make Him sin for us, that we might be righteous in His sight. Let us pray. Great God and Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee for Thy holy law. We pray that it would have its work in our own lives, convicting us of our sin and yet grant unto us the grace to also flee to Christ for forgiveness We thank Thee for him who knew no sin. We thank Thee that Thou didst make him to be sin for us, that we might be righteous in Thy sight. Give unto us, O God, a growing hatred for our sin. Give unto us a growing appreciation of Thy mercy towards us in Christ Jesus, whose name we pray. Amen.