Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Exodus 20:17.
Exodus 20:17 Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbour's.
The tenth commandment is the final and crowing commandment of
the Ten Words. In the second table, we
see the movement from sinful deeds (dishonor of parents, murder, adultery,
stealing), to sinful words (false witness), and now to sinful thoughts (don’t
covet). If we are honest, we will acknowledge that we have entertained the
doing of these things in our heart of hearts. A.W. Pink said that in this
commandment, God “proclaims His rights over the hidden realm of desires.”
The Puritan minister Thomas Watson (1620-1686) called
covetousness “the mother of all sins.”
Indeed, this commandment touches on the root of nearly all our sinful
inclinations. He offered four strategies for the believer for dealing with
covetousness:
1. We must exercise faith:
We
must trust in the Lord. The person who is consumed with covetousness lacks
faith or trust in God. “The root of
covetousness is distrust of God’s providence.”
“Faith is the cure of care.”
Covetousness shows a lack of trust in God’s promise of provision (cf.
Matt 6:25-34).
“Faith,
by divine chemistry, extracts comfort out of God. A little with God is sweet. Thus, faith is a remedy against covetousness;
it overcomes not only fear of the world, but love of the world.”
2. We
must employ judicious considerations:
By
this Watson meant that the believer should remember that all the things that
the world prizes most will not bring true and lasting satisfaction. If you had everything you think you wanted,
your spiritual problems would not be magically solved. “The things of the world can no more ease a
troubled spirit than a gold cap can cure the headache.”
3. We must
covet spiritual things more than earthly things.
Covet
grace. Covet heaven. “If we covet heaven more, we shall covet
earth less.”
4. Pray
for a heavenly mind.
Watson’s
prayer was this: “Lord, dig the earth out of my heart; teach me how to possess
the world, and not love it; how to hold it in my hand, and not let it get into
my heart.”
After
these four strategies, Watson ends by saying that “the best remedy is
contentment. If we are content with our
own, we shall not covet that which is another’s.” He added, “He who has enough, will not covet
that which is another’s.”
May the Lord help us to employ these strategies and others as
we grow in godliness.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
No comments:
Post a Comment