The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your
neighbor’s.” Exo 20:17
The main point of this commandment is that God looks at the heart: at our motives, desires, thoughts, intents, reasons why we do things, and the reasons why we want to do things.
God knows everything, even the inmost thoughts and desires of our hearts; the devil lies and says God does not know.
The Eight Commandment tells us, stealing is a sin; this commandment goes further, and tells us the thought behind stealing, which is coveting, is also sin. Coveting, jealousy,
envy, these are sins.
Who of us would want our thought life projected onto a screen for people to see?
In my Blog on the Eight Commandment, I said stealing was a matter of contentment. Covetous, is dis-contentment!
As far as actual conduct is concerned, of course the act of stealing is worse than coveting. Some sins are worse than others; doing is worse than thinking to do. Never reason, “Since I thought about doing it, I might as well do it,” that again is the devil’s logic.
This commandment goes deeper, it goes to the root cause, the heart of the matter. It reveals our heart to us; the heart of the matter is the heart; the problem is the heart!
No one knows our thought life except us.
As we consider this commandment, we will learn much about ourselves, specifically we will learn that our hearts are a fountain of sin, spewing out sin, a cesspool of sin. Always wanting what is not ours, leading us into all kinds of sins.
5th Commandment = Not content to be under someone, I rebel against authority.
6th Commandment = Not happy with what someone has done to me, I want him dead.
7th Commandment = Not happy with my spouse, I want yours.
8th Commandment = Not happy with what I have, I want to steal what you have.
9th Commandment = Not happy with what the truth, I lie.
Thinking about the 10th Commandment, shows me my heart, and the sin that is in it; the sin that just keeps welling up: a fountain!
Regarding himself, Paul says, “I did not know sin, except through the law. I would not have known coveting (was a sin) if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” Rom 7:7
If you consider this commandment, and its searching nature regarding what is in your heart, not just regarding coveting, but your entire thought life, you will learn about sin,
your sin! And it will not be a pleasant sight.
In the area of material things, this is very hard indeed, because our entire society is fueled by consumption, buy, buy, buy, built on dis-contentment, which the American
Advertising Industry is driving; it wants us dis-content, it feeds our innate discontentment; that is how it manipulates us to buy.
Now of course all buying is not sin, but regarding sinful dis-contentment, envy, jealousy, which is what this commandment is speaking of, the question is, “What do I do about my
sinful nature, and the sin of dis-content that arises from it?”
Hear the simple gospel message: Jesus Christ gives us a new heart, a new nature, one that hates sin. His blood washes away / covers up the sins we have committed, and by
the work of the holy spirit within us, he causes us to hate sin.
Do you want to be free from sin – go to Jesus!