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P7: The Cost and Conquest of Coveting: Exodus 20:17 | Bible Study
April 4, 2024 · 1 hr
P7: The Cost and Conquest of Coveting: Exodus 20:17 | The Torah Bible Study
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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In this video 0:37 Understanding Covetousness11:55 The Dangers and Roots of Covetousness37:00 Overcoming Covetousness
0:01 I hope you're ready for some bible study because I am.Understanding Covetousness 0:37 Hey, everybody. Welcome in to the Deep Dive Bible Study. We are in the home office tonight on Wednesday night as usual. And if you wanna hit the subscribe and the like and the notification bell buttons, that would be0:49 very appreciated. My name is Tim. Welcome in to youtube dot com slash tim hatch live. I'm excited to get into today's content, deep dive, bible study, Torah, the law of life part 7, where we are1:01 going to spend an entire episode talking about 1 of the 10 commandments, and it's the last commandment. And there's a big reason why we're doing 1 whole episode on that commandment1:13 because that commandment is tied to all the other commandments. We're gonna talk about that today and we're going to deal with the big stain of covetousness on our hearts. You're in1:25 for a treat though. Trust me. Don't take this 1 negatively. This is a positive word as God's word always is. Let's get started.1:34 The Deep Dive season 7 presents Toire the Door1:45 Okay. Let's go to the text, the Bible text. That's where it all begins. Ladies and gentlemen, Exodus chapter 20 verse 17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your1:57 neighbor's wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is in your neighbor's or that is your neighbor's. And Deuteronomy 5 21 is2:09 basically the same with a slight deviation. I don't know if you can see it there. It says, you shall not desire your neighbor's house, which is another word for covetousness or coveting. So
2:21 this is the last of 10 commandments. God has been speaking through Moses to the people on the mountain. He is unpacking for them what they will live
2:33 like on the heels of their deliverance from Egypt and from slavery. Now, God is dealing with their attitude, their behavior. This is what you wanna do. Now, Dennis
2:45 Prager makes a great point about this commandment, and I appreciate Dennis Prager's insights into the Bible. He is an Orthodox Jew. He is a very faithful Jew. He is not a Christian, but he is a very wise interpreter of
2:56 the Torah. And so I have used him as a resource for this content, and, you can go and look up his, PragerU video on coveting. But But what he says in that video is very important. He says, this is the only commandment
3:07 that has to do with thought, not action. And that is somewhat true, although I would make the argument that the first commandment has to do with thought. But the last commandment is not you aren't physically killing or
3:17 stealing or committing adultery, but you are thinking about it. You are you are building an attitude to perform 1 of those other sins. Right? That's what covenant is. It is the and and he says this in his
3:28 video, which I didn't check. So I'm just taking his word for it that out of the 613 laws of the Torah, this is the only 1 that deals with thought. And that's big. I'm gonna take his word for it. I'm gonna trust him. He's
3:40 a pretty honorable guy. So I'm gonna think about this as pretty reliable a a pretty reliable source. Yeah. This is the 1 that deals with how you think. All the other ones are dealing with how you act. So it's a big
3:52 1. And tonight, I I just feel in my spirit that I need to say this. Tonight's gonna be positive. I know I already said it once, but I'm gonna say it again. It's gonna be positive. We're gonna see some people set free.
4:03 Raise your hand, praise hands in the comments if you wanna be set free. Because if you get freed from covetousness, you get freed from breaking a lot of your life and other people's lives.
4:15 You get free from destroying your mind and obsessing about others, and you get joy, and you get, happiness, and you get contentment. That's the fruit of this
4:27 study, which I believe will be where we go. So I wanna give you the heads up as to what we're doing tonight, the whole shebang. This is the outline. Coveting, what it is. We're gonna look at that. Number 2, what
4:39 it is not because a lot of people think they're coveting and they're not, and we're gonna talk about what that means. Number 3, what does it look like when we covet? We're gonna look at some biblical examples there.
4:46 Number 4, where does it start? How do we get to a covetous attitude? And number 5, what does it do to us? I think we gotta look at that because it's huge and there are some things that I was given in this study prep that
4:57 I had never seen before in the biblical text. You are not going to want to miss that content. And then number 6, of course, we don't want you to just talk we don't wanna just talk about all the bad. We wanna talk about
5:06 how do we overcome covetousness. So with that in mind, let's deal with number 1. What is it? Now coveting is a, a dark word. We don't even like to say say, like, say 1 of those words in the Bible that you don't even
5:18 like to say. Right? Like, abomination. I don't like to say that word either. Right? There's a lot of biblical words that are just dark in their in their name. You know, give me a couple comments in the in the comment
5:29 section if you can think of a word in the Bible that you think, man, that just is a dark word. I don't even like to say it. Loins is a dark word. There's a lot of places where the King James version talks about your
5:40 loins. Right? But coveting is a a word that's dark, and it just kinda comes across as a very caustic topic. But what if I told you, and this is the thing, that if you can get this
5:51 this thing locked down in your life, and by locked down, I mean out of your life, it will lead to a happier existence. It will lead to a more peaceful existence. Hey. It'll lead to a
6:03 depression free, anxiety free life. It will lead to a beautiful life because I think that's what the law is intended to do. We've called this study Torah the law of life, and that is exactly what it is. It is the law of
6:15 life. It is God telling us here's what's going to lead to life and here's what's not. Here's what's going to kill you. So what does it mean to covet? Let's talk about that. Number 1, the word
6:27 in Hebrew is kamad, and it means to desire, yearn for, covet, lust after someone or something, specifically, for the use of one's own gratification. You are not
6:39 just wanting things. You are wanting things for your self centered gratification, and you are wanting other people's things. Secondly, this is an inward not outward deal. Okay?
6:51 So you covet inwardly, but then you steal outwardly. You covet inwardly, you commit adultery outwardly. You covet inwardly, so you lie, bear false witness outwardly. So this is again, we're gonna talk about
7:03 this, the law that deals with thought and how it relates to the first commandment, which is an amazing, correlation that God has embedded into the 10 commandments. Even their order, the
7:15 list is important. The order of list is important. And so this is an inward, not an outward commandment, and it has a corollary to the first commandment. And then coveting is the seed of, bad behavior. Let me
7:27 get myself out of the way here. Bad behavior toward our neighbor. It's the seed. It's where it's where it begins. So before you even think about all those other sins that you're gonna commit, this is the 1 that starts it
7:37 all. So we're gonna look also tonight at what well, before we get any further, let me do this on the screen, the parallel of the first and the last commandments.
7:49 So you have 10 commandments in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter 5. First 1, you shall have no other God before me. I come first and notice the phrase that God uses
8:00 here, not by accident, but this phrase of you shall have. In other words, I am going to be your possession. You're going to have me as your God. Now that means you can't make me
8:12 what you want. That's idolatry. Number 2, that means you gotta live in a responsive way toward my, of my character, not in the way that you see fit. That's name in vain. You have to honor the Sabbath, spend a day with me
8:23 worshiping, not working, not focusing on you, focusing on our relationship, and resting in me. Honoring your father and mother ties to the first commandment. Why? Because God the the image of authority in our life first
8:33 in our life is our parents. And then number 6 through 9 relate to the last commandment, which again, I I differ with Dennis Prager here on this. I believe it is the second of 2 commandments
8:45 that are dealing with their thought. So you shall not covet. Now if we have God, okay, and look at this. This is important. If we have God, it eliminates wanting what others
8:57 have. See, that's the premise for the whole study. But if we have if we know we have God and we keep God first, it eliminates this inordinate desire to have what
9:09 other people have. And that's why I think there is a parallel here between the first and the last commandment. And I wanna put a little dividing line here because I think the first commandment, that's the 1
9:20 that governs the first 5 commandments. So if you've got God first, you relate to God properly in the first table of the law, but then the last table of the law are
9:32 undergirded by the tenth commandment, meaning that if you can if you can get covetous desire under wraps, you will see yourself not steal, not lie, not adult not commit adultery, and not,
9:45 murder. Okay. That's kinda like a cool, parallelism there of the 10 commandments. Even the order. Like, it's so cool how God's word comes alive. Right? Even the order is
9:57 intentional. Where is it seen in the Bible? Guess what, guys? It's seen right when sin enters the world. So it's the predicate it's the predicate for all the other commandments
10:09 being broken. Let's go to the text, Deuteronomy of Genesis chapter 3 6. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired. The very same word for
10:21 coveting in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 in the commandment is the same Hebrew word here for desired in Genesis 3 6. The the woman coveted the fruit, and she took it
10:33 and she gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate. So there was coveting involved in the very first sin. That speaks volumes, ladies and gentlemen, and we cannot afford to miss it. But
10:45 it's not where it happened first, and this is important. The reason why the woman coveted the fruit that she shouldn't have eaten was because she was told to covet the fruit that she shouldn't have eaten. By who? By
10:55 Satan. Satan is the fallen angel Lucifer. He is talked about in Isaiah chapter third 14. This is, the I will's statement of Lucifer, the, cherub,
11:07 the, you could call him a fiery cherub, seraphim, if you will, who stood in the council of God. I believe he was 1 of 3 archangels. There's Gabriel. There's Michael. There was Lucifer. Lucifer was
11:19 in charge of the singing and the worship of heaven. We can we don't have time to go into tonight. But anyway, what happened with Lucifer, he was first amongst the archangels. He was created first. He was beautiful. He
11:30 was displayed with, raiment glorious raiment and, jewels and and, rubies and satisfies and all the precious jewels, but it wasn't enough. And Isaiah chapter 14 verse 13 says, you said in your
11:42 heart, and there it is. It's a thought. It's a thought before it's an action. Coveting is the thought that leads to the action. Get this 1 under control. You will live a very peaceful life. So you said in your heart, I
11:53 will ascend to the heavens, above the stars of God. I will sit I will set my throne on high. I will sit in the mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will
The Dangers and Roots of Covetousness
12:04 make myself like the most high. Now this prophecy is 2 pronged prophecy. It is directed at the king of Tyre in Isaiah's day, but it is it is also directed toward a cosmic enemy, a cosmic king, a Lucifer who was cast out
12:16 of heaven because he coveted. Now think about that. He lost what he had because he coveted. And how many people think, if I covet, if I want, if I just go for it, if I go and get it, then I will be happy and I will be
12:27 blessed and everything will be mine and I will live happy. And that's not true. Actually, the scriptures are going to teach us again and again and again that the people who did not get coveting under control lost
12:35 everything that they had. That is a very important distinction. Now Jesus, we talk about this on the study repeatedly, and we dealt with it with murder, with adultery, and with, lying,
12:47 that Jesus elevates the law. He does not diminish the law. We think that, grace is a license to sin. That's not true. When Jesus shows up, he shows us the full ex, expression of the law. So what
12:59 he what does he do with, adultery? He says, okay. I'm gonna elevate that. We're not just gonna talk about the physical touch of another woman, that is not your wife or somebody else's wife. We're going to talk about the
13:09 the thought, the lusting, the coveting of that woman. He does this with, murder. We're not just gonna talk about actually taking life and stabbing your brother. We're talking about just being angry at him, which leads to
13:20 murder. So Jesus is always uncovering. Right? This is what he does. He's always peeling back the layers of the law so that we can see God's truest intention. Well, he does that with coveting in Matthew chapter 6. And
13:31 it's probably a text that you think, this has nothing to do with coveting. What are you talking about? That's nothing to do with coveting. Okay. I will tell you that it does. Let me go to the text. There's something
13:41 called Christian coveting. There is. Christian coveting is when we want things and and we just put a Christian glaze on them. And Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6 verse 1. What did he say? He says,
13:53 beware of practicing your righteousness before others. Notice the phrase here, the qualifier. In order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father in heaven. So, of course, we can
14:04 covet to get things, you know, illegally or or, you know, less than reputably or, you know, sinfully. But but we can also covet things that seem very pure,
14:17 such as the Pharisees did, such as the religious leaders did in Jesus' day, where they said, you know, we're going to we're going to do these acts of righteousness. We're gonna give big money. We're gonna pray
14:28 long prayers. We're going to have these garments of, you know, religious reputation on our bodies so that we can be seen. They what were they now underneath all of that presentation
14:41 was a thought, was what was going on up in here. And they were saying to themselves, we need the praise of men. We need the approval of others. And so this is
14:53 why I put here that coveting can be a subconscious Christian looking activity when we do Christian things for the approval of others. And some of you are like,
15:05 wow. I never even thought about that in my own life. But it's so true. We can all do that. When we try to act more spiritual than we are, we are really actually coveting a better reputation than we really have. And by
15:17 the way, this is what repels people from the faith. It does not attract people to the faith. How many non Christians do you know want nothing to do with Christianity because they have met people who are actually not as
15:28 good as they say they are? See, I don't like to talk about how good I am. I'd rather talk about how bad I am. I wanna be in the in the in the vein of of the apostle Paul who said, look,
15:40 I'm no better than anybody else. I I'm just as bad as you. I I'm a sinner. I'm I'm a I'm a guy who needs Jesus. I do things that I can't understand. And he says this again and again, throughout the scriptures in
15:52 the, in the writings of, the apostle Paul, we see a man who is well aware of his failures. And he is showing off his his
16:04 weakness, What does he say? So that Christ's strength might be perfected in him. Now there's another place where Jesus deals with coveting, and it is a straight out, repudiation of
16:16 a guy who did not have the money. Okay? And that is a very important qualifier. Jesus did not play this game that we see played out in our political discourse
16:28 today, which is that only rich people are covetous and greedy. Only rich people are the greedy ones. And so, you know, the greedy corporate executives, the greedy, Wall Street, hedge funds man
16:40 hedge fund managers, the greedy, you know, business leaders, or the greedy whatever you wanna say. Hollywood moguls. They got greed because they have so much money. Jesus did not say that. Actually, many wealthy
16:51 people have no greed in their heart. They're generous. They're givers. They are benefactors. Abraham was a wealthy man. David was a wealthy man. These people gave to the kingdom in exorbitant amounts. Solomon,
17:04 case could be made that he started out not greedy, got greedy at the end. So Jesus is asked this question in Luke chapter 12. Someone in the crowd, verse 13 says, teacher to Jesus,
17:15 teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. And Jesus just kinda rebukes him right out. Man, who made me a judge arbiter over you? Then he said to him, take care and look at his line. Oh, this line is so
17:26 powerful. Take care. Be on your guard against all covetousness. Now that little phrase all is important because there are different kinds of covetousness that I don't think many
17:37 people are aware of. And that's exactly what Jesus wants to point out here. There is the covetousness of you think that you deserve something that other people have simply because
17:50 they have it. They have too much. They have more than you. So now I deserve that. This is where socialism comes from. This is where communism comes from. This is where and history backs me up here. Every totalitarian
18:02 regime takeover or revolution from the French Revolution to Mao's China to Hitler's youth to the, Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, this
18:15 is the underlayment for the political upheavals that reengineered society by riling up the have nots to violently kill the
18:26 haves. In fact, Christopher Nolan, a brilliant filmmaker, does a great job of portraying this in his Batman series, the third, installment of that series, Dark Knight Rises. Watch the movie because
18:38 it basically is a tale of 2 cities, retold in the Batman genre, which is brilliant storytelling, by the way. And in fact, he he quotes a tale of 2 cities at the end. It is a far, far better place
18:50 that I go than I have ever been, and it's a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. And you have this representation that this this story is not new. It is it needs to be retold
19:02 again and again in every generation because you can be greedy and poor. And that's exactly what Jesus talks about. But he talks about this to a man who does not have the money by talking about a man who did have the
19:13 money. And he told this parable of a man who, you know, his land produced plentifully. And he just thought, what am I gonna do? I have nowhere to stay on my crops. And he builds bigger barns. And he says, now I'm gonna
19:23 store up all this stuff, and I'm gonna say to my soul, you know, be happy. You've got many things laid up for many years. But God said tonight, your soul is required of you. And who's gonna get what you have laid up for
19:33 yourself? And then he says, this is the 1 who lays up treasure for himself, but is not rich toward God. A basic underlying theme here from Jesus is coveting is not something that just the the struggle the the the the
19:44 rich struggle with. It's everybody's struggle. It's my struggle. It's your struggle. It's all of our struggles. Now let's talk about Paul because Paul makes that clear. This is how Paul came to the reality of what the
19:55 law actually does. Paul was a Pharisee, and he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. And he says, the the commandment that got me, you know, Pharisees prided themselves on their
20:07 tithing, their ritualistic practices, their legalistic obedience to the law, their traditions over even the law itself. And Paul says that coveting is where my
20:19 self confidence in my religious performance collapsed. And by the way, for everybody listening to me, listen closely here, you don't meet Jesus truly until your self righteousness
20:31 collapses. Your self righteousness has to collapse. It has to be crushed under the weight of the law. That is how you come to Christ. And so many people think coming to Christ is just a moralistic
20:43 improvement system. No. It is not. So many people think coming to Christ is when you just, you know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and and start believing God instead of living for yourself. No, it is not. Coming
20:55 to Christ is when you are defeated, destroyed, demolished in your self righteousness by the law, the weightiness, the heaviness of the law. You realize you cannot do it. You
21:07 realize you are not a good person. And when you realize that, you turn to the 1 who is a good person and was a good person for your sake, who fulfilled the law on your behalf, who is the end of the law for all who
21:18 believe, Romans chapter 12 says this, and you bow the knee to him. That is how you come to Christ. And Paul, illustrates that here in Romans chapter,
21:30 7. Let's take a look at it. He says in verse 7 of Romans 7, what then shall we say that the law is sin? By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have
21:42 known what it is to covet. Notice that Paul writes about that law. He says, I wouldn't have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you not you shall not covet. But sin, that sin, seizing an opportunity through
21:53 the commandment produces me all kinds of covetousness, for apart from the law, sin dies. But I and and he says I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. Now he is
22:03 unpacking his personal testimony here. He is unpacking the fact that we are all going to be, crushed by this 1 commandment. Coveting is the underlayment for breaking all the other sins.
22:15 So important too because you think about Paul the apostle. When he says that I I saw that coveting came alive, it it it produced in me produced all kinds of covetous desires in me. Well,
22:27 what what do you think that a zealous, you know, fundamentalist, legalistic Pharisee would covet? Just ask yourself that question. And if you have quick hands, type into the comments. What do
22:39 you think a legalistic, self righteous Pharisee covets? Like, he's he doesn't steal. Right? He doesn't take other people's property. He knows that's he knows that's wrong. He knows he
22:51 shouldn't commit adultery. He knows that's wrong. But what do you think that he would covet? And I thought about this, and I have a note in my bible about this, that the thing that Paul would have coveted more than
23:01 anything is self righteousness. He would have loved to be thought of as a moral upstanding member of society because that's that's how you get ahead in the Pharisaic mindset, in the
23:13 Pharisaic community. Is they wanted to outdo each other with their righteous acts and their righteous living. And so he he could he illustrates what Jesus talks about in Matthew 6 that you could even do good things for
23:25 selfish reasons. I call it on this channel all the time, sanctified selfishness. Be careful that you don't fall into that as a Christian because we can do good things with the wrong reason with the wrong intentions.
23:34 Okay. I'm only at number 1. Let's get to number 2 on the outline. What it is not and this is important. Please do not confuse coveting with all desire, and this is so important. The commandment does not end at
23:46 the word covet. It doesn't. It doesn't say, thou shalt not covet, as in to say, thou shalt not desire. I love what Adrian Rogers said about this. He said, when god saves you, he doesn't make you passionless. I love
23:58 that. God does not make you desire free when you become a Christian. There are good and healthy desires that you should have as a Christian. You should you should desire a spouse. You should
24:10 desire children. You should desire a home. I mean, you shouldn't desire nothing. That's Buddhism. Don't confuse the religions. God god wants to give good things to you. And the
24:22 scriptures tell us to pray about everything. In James chapter 4, he says, you don't have because you don't ask. We have to ask. We have to and because this is not a crime, it is not a
24:34 sin to have desires for good things. You should want friends. Jesus desired Mark chapter 3 tells us this, he desired the 12 apostles to follow him, the 12 disciples to follow
24:46 him. He desired to eat the Passover with them. So it is not the elimination of desire as if we become Buddhists. Absolutely not. Desire is even a good thing. But here's a great qualifier
24:58 about this. Okay? And CS Lewis does this treatment in mere Christianity. He says this. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. He says,
25:10 we say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better looking than others, End quote. CS Lewis. Phenomenal quote. Because that's
25:22 exactly the line. That's the line that we need to be aware of. Do you want that? Do you want a wife? Good. But are you just looking for a wife that's better looking than all your friend's wives? Because before you know
25:33 it, that could lead you to the wrong wife. Right? You you you want a house and that is a good that is a good thing. It is a it is a necessary, object to have to raise a family, to sleep, to,
25:45 you know, live basically. But are you only wanting a house that is bigger than your brothers or bigger than your cousins or bigger than your neighbors? Now you've crossed a line from, just desiring
25:57 to coveting because you have now lived, maybe even subconsciously, through them and, in a competitive mindset
26:10 against them to measure your life only valuable because you have more than them or something bigger than them. You see, that's where covetousness leads. And so it that's not
26:21 what it it it is not but back to the point. It is not just wanting. Okay? Because because, again, the commandment does not end it. You shall not covet. It's you shall not covet your neighbor's house, your neighbor's
26:31 wife, your neighbor's servants, your neighbor's ox, your dog your neighbor's donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. So let's just walk this through. You can admire someone's
26:43 car. You haven't coveted. You can go to the store and and and look at the car. You haven't coveted. You can buy the car. You can drive the car home. You can bring the car out to the
26:55 driveway and invite the whole family. Come and look at my car. You could even call your neighbor who inspired you to buy the car. Say, hey. I just got the same car as you. You still haven't coveted. You haven't coveted
27:05 yet at all. But the moment that you start thinking, well, I'm gonna get the better car because I need to be better than him or I I I'm I'm gonna get his car. Now watch out.
27:17 That's what we're talking about. Too many Christians are subconsciously Buddhists and not Christians because they think that Christianity is the elimination of all desire. So that's not what
27:29 covenant is. Okay. Let's go to number 3. What does it look like? And we're gonna look at some biblical examples. And the first example that comes to mind as it should probably come to your mind of course, we've already
27:39 talked about Lucifer. We've talked about Eve, but let's talk about Samson. Samson is perhaps the archetype of the Old Testament coveter in chief. Right? It says that he went down to Timnah. And Timnah, he saw and that's
27:50 where coveting always starts. 1 of the daughters of the Philistines, he came up and told us about father and mother. I saw 1 of the daughters of the Philistines. Now get her for me as my wife. Notice the text is very,
27:58 very clear that his character is off here. Now get her. You don't do that to your you don't tell you, go get me her. Like, this is not how a man acts. This is not a good character. And his father and mother said to him,
28:10 is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among our own people that you must get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to her, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. That is
28:19 a huge phrase because Samson is an indictment of the nation of Israel at this stage in their life. The theme of judges is that everyone was doing what was right in their in their own eyes.
28:31 Judges chapter 17 verse 6. In those days, Israel had no king, and everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes. So Samson when you read the the story of Samson, yes. He is a historical figure. Yes. It is a true
28:41 narrative. But number 3, it is a picture indicting Israel for their spiritual reality. This is where they were. And I thought about this. When it says here in the text,
28:54 that she is right in my own eyes, this is the days of the judges. The judges had no king, therefore, people did whatever they wanted. And I thought about it. This is the revelation that the Lord gave me even in preparing
29:04 this talk. How many know pastors took his revelations from the Lord through his word? They had no king. They desired whatever they wanted. They did whatever was right in their own eyes. Coveting is the fruit of
29:16 a kingless Christianity. Coveting is the fruit of a kingless Christianity. I wish I had that on the screen, but I don't think I have that on the screen. No. When Christ is not king and you say, well, I
29:28 thought Christ is automatically my king. Not necessarily so. See see, a lot of Christians have Christ as buddy, partner, you know, life coach, but he's not king. Kings tell people what to do. Kings own things.
29:40 Kings own people. Kings own and run kingdoms. Is Jesus owning you? Does he own? Does he have authority over you? Because that is when he is king. When he is over you and an authority over you and owns you and owns
29:51 everything around you and everything that you think you own, you know, is actually his. Now he is king. And if you wanna stay away from coveting, it starts with setting Christ up as king in your life. My car is not my
30:01 car. It is Christ's car. My kids are not my kids. They are Christ's kids. My house is not my house. It is Christ's house. Everything is God's. That's Psalm 24 verse 1. Okay. Samson. So we all know the Sam
30:13 story of Samson. Eventually, his coveting leads him to blindness because he is completely, manipulated by Delilah. She asks him the secret of his strength. He gives her 3 wrong answers. She does all 3
30:24 things. He's not waking up. He's just blinded by his covetous desire. Eventually, he is enslaved. Hair is cut off, and he is bound in the prison of the Philistines, and he is grinding grain. So the
30:36 famous preacher line is sin blinds you, binds you, and grinds you. Sin binds you, blinds you, binds you, and grinds you, and it starts where? It starts with covetousness. Let's go to number 2 in the narrative of the
30:47 book, of the bible. I think Achan is a great example. Joshua chapter 7 on the heels of the, conquest of Jericho. God had said to them, devote everything to
30:59 destruction. Every every object, every gold item, every man, woman, and child, this nation has not repented for 400 years. You're gonna be my object of judgment. They go in. They destroy it. Well, there's a guy named
31:10 Achan who sees, the Bible says he broke faith with regard to the devoted things for Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zarah, the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord
31:20 burned against the people of Israel. And then when they finally find out what happens because they go and they they try to fight another battle and they lose the battle that they fought after, Jericho in AI. Joshua is
31:31 mortified. He can't believe that they lost the battle. What's going on? I thought God was gonna give us the land. And God says, look, stop calling out to me and stop crying. Israel has sinned, and they go out and they
31:40 find out that this guy had taken his his, the Babylonian garment. And look with me, if you will, at, verse 20 and 21 of this chapter because it's so brilliant how the biblical text
31:52 exposes coveting for us in this text. Achan answered Joshua, truly I have sinned against the lord of the lord god of Israel. And this is what I did when I saw, again, is a thought, among
32:04 the spoils of a a beautiful cloak from Shinar. By the way, Shinar is the plain where they built the tower of Babel. He says, when I saw a beautiful cloak from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold
32:15 weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. And you just
32:27 have to kinda, like, listen to the text speaking in ways that is not just coming out and saying it. The saddest part of the story of Aiken is that he couldn't even show off the things that he had
32:39 coveted because he knew he had taken them wrongly. You know you're coveting when you can't, you know, you can't share this with people because it's just you got it illicitly. You got it illegally. Then you know
32:51 you're coveting. And you think about this, Achan took this beautiful garment and buried it in the dirt. How many know dirt messes up beautiful garments? But it is a beautiful
33:03 picture, really, of what coveting does. It it destroys our souls, but it destroys our stuff. We lose it in the end. So you have Samson. He loses his eyesight, his wisdom, his spiritual
33:15 insight. He loses his, you know, emotional capacity to discern or sorry, his spiritual capacity to discern what the law is doing. You see Achan. He loses the very thing that he
33:27 coveted. And then here's the here is the number 1, the winner of the all time worst coveter in human history. Can you guess his name? All time greatest
33:39 coveter in not not Satan. We've already talked about that. Not Eve. We already talked about them. This is the greatest coveter in human history. Do you know his name? You need to know you need to know his name. His name
33:50 is Judas. Judas is the all time greatest coveter in human history. First off, let's talk take a look at John chapter 12. This is a picture of coveting. When the woman named Mary comes and
34:02 anoints Jesus' feet with oil, and it says it's a very expensive, jar of perfume, and it was worth a year's wages. We hear this from Judas' lips. Judas says, why was this ointment not
34:14 sold for 300 denarii? John 12 5. And given to the poor. Coveting always has this, facade of concern for others, doesn't it? It can. Not always, but
34:25 sometimes it's he he doesn't care about the poor, and John makes sure we know that. He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and having charged with the money bag, he used to help
34:36 himself to what was put into it. So what was Judas's problem? He wanted what was not his. He helped himself to the money bag. Okay. Ma when he goes to betray Jesus, Matthew chapter
34:48 26 verse 14, 1 of the 12 whose name was Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, what will you give me in order they may deliver him over to you? And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment, he
34:59 sought an opportunity to betray Jesus. Notice what coveting does in Judas' life. He he becomes hypercritical of people's love for the lord. He feigns religiosity and care for the
35:11 poor, and then he's opportunistic not for doing things for God, but for doing for the things for himself. And I think that is 1 of the these are the 3, you know, detrimental effects of coveting on our life. We start to
35:22 think, okay, how can I leverage God's work for my own glorification? How can I become better through through Jesus? Instead of thinking, how can I serve others
35:34 so that they're better for Jesus? And that is where we see Judas. So moving on in his story, this is important. And, again, revelation that I had never
35:46 seen before, there is an order of events in Judas' life. So he used to steal from the treasury, then he sees Mary pouring out the oil on Jesus' feet, and he feigns religiosity, and then he goes to opportunistically
35:58 betray Jesus for money. Now look at this passage. It says in Luke 22 verse 1, this is at the Lord's supper. Now the feast of unleavened bread was near, which is called the Passover, And the chief priests and the scribes
36:07 were seeking how to put them to death, for they feared the people. Verse 3, then Satan entered Judas. Then Satan entered Judas. Wow. Wow. Wow.
36:19 Wow. Unbelievable text here because I never I had never seen this before, but there is a order to the events. And he is covetous all the
36:31 way through, growing more so toward the end that John 12 passage is toward the end of Jesus' ministry, and now he is letting Satan in. So let me put this on the screen. So
36:43 just to clarify. So first, he stole from the treasury, then he looked for self centered opportunity, and then he was filled with Satan. And here's the here's the big takeaway. It's gonna be it's gonna pinch, but it's
36:53 necessary. Coveting is a pathway for Satan into your life. And some of you have never thought about this before. You've never thought, oh, you know, it's just I I I got this thing where I just kinda get a little bitShow more
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