10c No.10 Keep your eyes to yourself

If you have a Bible, I'd like you to pick it up and lift it high. It's very good for arthritis to just lift your Bible high. I'll tell you why we've done that.

You can put it down now. Because my good friend Bishop Matt here and I, when we were traveling around Tanzania just 12 months or so ago, wherever we went, we asked people, one, to bring the Bible and two, to lift the Bible before the Lord and to thank Him for it. The Maasai tribespeople have just received this year a full copy of the Word of God.

Our guest is the chairman of the Bible Society of Tanzania. And one of the most wonderful things in the world today is to know of the Scriptures being translated into differing languages and for many people to have access to the Word of God. We at the TAB believe that our ministries are built entirely on this book.

We put so much value on the Word of God. That's why we ask people to bring their Bibles to church and to check what the preacher says and to read from Scripture because it's by Scripture that God speaks to us today. So it's good to have that reminder that there are people around the world for the first time receiving God's Word.

We have our own copies. Let's turn to God's Word in the 20th chapter of the book of Exodus and we're going to read through the statement of the law, what God requires of you and me in terms of obedience and lifestyle. Exodus chapter 20.

If you've got the new international version of the Bible, then read out loud with me. If yours is a different translation, just read perhaps a little more quietly. And as the words are read, let them sink into our convictions.

This is what God wants of all of us. Exodus 20, 1 through 2 and including 17. And God spoke all these words.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honour your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbour. Keeping my eyes upon you, Lord, keeping my mind dispayed on you, giving to you my every fear, knowing you care.

Reign in my life, O Lord, I pray, I want to live for you each day, casting my burden on you, Lord, knowing you care. In a house in a street in a town far away there lived a family under the name of Dre. There was a father, a mother, a daughter and son, a church-going family, if ever there was one.

One normal Sunday they were all up late, daughter in the bathroom, father at the gate, yelling at his son, hurry and finish your toast, while mother in the kitchen looked more pensive than most. She was admiring her neighbour's new garden chairs, after all they were much nicer than theirs. Still, she thought, as she put in the roast, they've only got them so that they can boast.

So off they churched they went, a family of four, with mother wishing they had just a little bit more, then they could afford a huge patio table with chairs and a barbecue, if only they were able. Of course they'd use it for the house group and things, might invite next door for witnessing. However, they arrived, found their seats and sat down.

Something caught daughter's eye, she looked around. There it was, one excellent hat, she rather fancied one like that. Mother promised her one the very next day.

Now be quiet and listen to what the pastor has to say. Father was looking at the new suit the pastor was wearing. He thought it'd look much better on a man of his bearing.

During the service, son was engrossed it seems, but at last it was his friend's Nintendo machine. They're great, dad, he says, just look what it does. Oh, why can't I have one, dad replies, because.

But he soon relented, well, daughter had a treat, but he wondered how on earth he was going to make ends meet. I'll know, I'll take out the loan, that's what I'll do, and our spending dreams can become true. A dishwasher for mother, she'd like one of those.

New toys for son and for daughter, new clothes. And I'll have a car, just like my friends. Their spending spree seemed not to end.

Of course, I'll give lift to church and back in my brand new soft top pink Cadillac. They saw new things that other people had and got the latest model, just to be rad. To keep up to date with their latest trends, that was their motto, to follow their friends.

It had to be better, be the community's pride, while the increasing debt they tried to hide. By now, their home was quite deluxe with their latest equipment, but it seemed they'd forgotten some other commitments. Their dream wasn't to last for very long, for when they awoke one morning, it had all gone.

A crafty thief had taken the lot, only a light bulb had he forgot. Insurance was too costly, so they couldn't make a claim, and the loan interest had gone up, you know their game. If only they'd been more careful and controlled their greed, this mess they're now in needn't have been.

They could have done without a few things here and there, the car, the Nintendo, the all-weather, multi-positionable, adjustable height, reversible cover, false flap for easy storage, garden chairs. The hassle could have been saved, really, couldn't it? If they'd only remembered, do not covet it. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that sometimes, as something that's semi-humorous is presented, it leaves the impact very much in our minds of what your Word seriously wants to say. Lord, we've been singing songs that focus in upon you, and many of us here, though perhaps at this moment not all, have this great desire to get things so sorted out in our lives that we might seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, that the Lord Jesus may be fairest in our lives, that the only overarching desire that we have may be to please you. Until the day dawns when our earthly pilgrimage is through, and we step across the Jordan and into our Father's house.

Lord, as we look into your Word and think again of these principles of conduct, help us to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, and to follow you more nearly in terms of our response to what your commandments don't just suggest, but stipulate our lives should be. For the sake of the Savior. Amen.

Let's go to Exodus, and the chapter that we all join together in reading from, Exodus 20. I particularly want to congratulate Jo just then. She wrote that, and she did it fairly quickly.

And knowing something about the strains of memory, I thought she did brilliantly. Right, well we come through, and to those of you who are not present with us on a regular basis here at the tab, let me home in on what I said a few moments ago, that is we follow a prescribed syllabus in terms of our preaching, letting the Word dictate what we have to consider, and we've been making our way on a Sunday night through the Ten Commandments. As we have said, Tim, myself, and Eric, and those who've preached alongside, not the Ten Suggestions, the Ten Commandments, this is not what God comes along and whispers in your ear and says, Hey, how about that? How about this? He says, do that, or else you suffer the consequences.

And he doesn't do that incidentally in a sort of dictatorial fashion. There is nothing that God wants for you in your life more than the best. I want to take a rerun at that, because some of you weren't perhaps taking it all in on first hearing.

There is nothing that God wants for your life more than the best. And that's the reason for these commandments. So we come to what is the final commandment, it's a brief one at least.

The summary statement is on Exodus 20, 17, You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. But you shall not covet.

I don't play bowls very often. I'm talking about the, not the greens. I wouldn't dare to go on there.

I mean down at the bowling ring, you know, on the seafront there, and knocking skittles down. The last time I tried on a tab party, I left my thumb in the ball, and it took a little while to get the bruise out, so I haven't been since. If you get the wood, or whatever you call the bowl, angled right, it will take down, how many skittles are there, twelve? Sorry? Ten.

Good to have authorities in these highly important theological matters present. If you get the ball angled right, it will take all the ten down in one go. Chung.

I sometimes think that that is, if you like, a summary of the Ten Commandments, in terms of this last one, you shall not covet. I mean by that, if you muff that one, you knock them all down. Back to that in a moment.

Covet, what does it mean? Well, it's buried into several meanings. It means perverted zeal, uncontrollable desire, unqualified craving, pining after, begrudging another, selfishly satisfying, number one, disregarding everyone else, in the language of the Yorkshire yokel, pull up the ladder, Jack, I'm in a dingy. Apologies to those who come from Yorkshire.

If you want a summary of all that vocabulary, it means selfishness made absolute. What is the opposite of selfishness? Self-less-ness. The devil personifies the first, not so.

Selfish. Our Lord personifies the second. Self-less.

And concentrated in the meaning of this commandment, you shall not covet, is an appeal to be like God, and the expression of God in our world, the Lord Jesus, and strong advice, not to ape the devil, and those who follow him who are selfish. Go back to the bowling green. At least go back to the 10-pin bowling.

You see, if you covet, in the way that some of this vocabulary has indicated, if you have uncontrollable desire, unqualified craving, pining after things, then the first commandment goes. Because the first commandment says, you shall love the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. If you're coveting something so that it eclipses everything else in importance, the second commandment goes.

You shall not make any graven idol. And even if you have not done it literally, you've done it in terms of your behavior pattern. If coveting is something that directs your lifestyle, then you're going to have little concern for the Lord's day.

If coveting is something that you will do at the expense of anything else, then murder is a possibility. Stealing, well, that's an option. And adultery, that comes in if it's somebody's wife that you happen to be after.

And so you can work your way through the whole of these commandments. If you're coveting after something, the possibility is, the certainty is, that you will bypass your obligations towards your father and your mother. Failure at the last commandment means all the skittles go, and you are keeping none at all.

Why should you not covet? And the answer is, you should not covet because if you do, you will live in a way that is dishonoring to God. You will live in a way that is harmful to the people with whom you have fellowship day by day. The covetous man might well cause family relationships to break.

There's a man in the Old Testament who illustrates my point. His name was Absalom. He's the son of David.

He's a good-looking lad. He's allowed his hair to grow long. He turns the heads of the young womenfolk in Israel.

And there's one thing that he's after, and that is the throne. And to get the throne becomes the greatest desire that this young Absalom has. And as a result, he plans murder towards his father, David.

Covetousness causes a man to break the ties of family responsibility. Covetousness causes a man to act out of character. I always have a sense of sympathy for Ahab in the Old Testament.

Anybody married to Jezebel demands our sympathy. And yet sometimes with my sympathy, there is a sense of disgust. Ahab, read the story.

It's an exciting one in some senses. Ahab is a man who, well, he's more or less got everything. I mean, all the things that were illustrated in a modern setting in the poem that has just been enacted before us, well, he had in his day.

But there was a fellow called Naboth, and Naboth had a vineyard, and the vineyard happened to be alongside the land of the king. And the king wanted this land so very much. Now, it was against the law in Old Testament times for a family man to sell his birthright to offer the title deeds of territory to someone else.

It just was not done. And Ahab comes to Naboth, and he tries to lift the scales in terms of purchasing the land, but Naboth will have nothing to do with it. And as a result, well, Ahab sulks, and his wife Jezebel, she comes along and discovers what is amiss with her husband.

And through her own intrigue and conniving, with the acceptance of Ahab, Naboth is murdered, and the vineyard becomes Ahab's. But at what terrible cost? It drags the name of the family down. The monarchy becomes a subject for third-rate jokes in Israel of that time.

A man's covetousness has eclipsed his reason. That's what covetousness does. It makes someone act out of character.

It can cause a man to set fire to the house in which he knows his mother and father are in. This happened last week if you read your newspapers in the United Kingdom. It can cause a man to want to have one newspaper after another newspaper after another newspaper, to control a vast segment of the media in the Western world, and to so overplay his hand that he can take almost into a state of penury pensioners who were depending upon funds that had been saved by his companies for their reclining years.

We have our Ahabs. We have our Absaloms today. The Word of God is utterly up to date.

That's why we read it here at the Ta'aba so much. When you get an obsession, then it becomes a driving force in your life. Our Lord Jesus, however, puts up the warning that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things.

It was old Henry Ford who said this. You cannot take your wealth with you, but you can send it on ahead. What does he mean? By the way that you handle the things that you have, by the cultivation of a lifestyle that is pleasing to the Lord, you can take through into eternity a life of discipleship which has honored God this side of eternity.

Covetousness is a prime sin. The Romans called it motus primo primi, which means that it's a sin that's in the mind before it actually spawns an action. You shall not covet.

There is not a court in England who will indict a man for coveting. Our judicial system only evaluates criminal acts. It does not evaluate the thought.

But before there is the act, then the thought reigns triumphant. And the Bible, which is cute in psychology in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament, says, hey, don't first be concerned about your actions until you have got your thoughts in order. That's why the Bible speaks so much of the heart, and by the heart it's referring also to the mental processes.

That is why the Bible says it is so important for you and for me to discipline our thoughts. How are the commandments broken? Basically by wrong thinking. And a prior wrong thought is covetousness, determining to acquire something, to do something, and then putting the thought into action.

So the last commandment deals not just with acts, it deals with thoughts, and it says do not covet. And if you covet, then you'll take the rest of the nine commandments down as well. Chung, you've got the lot with the final ball.

So you see, you cannot bypass this last commandment. Get nine out of ten right if it were possible, and you would still live a very faulty life. Who would want to go in an airplane where the pilot is known for getting nine out of ten flights down safely? The problem is yours might be the tenth.

You want a hundred percent as far as pilot safety is concerned. God is asking you to give attention to each one of these commandments, including the last. Covetousness is a prime sin.

Covetousness, says the apostle Paul, is a secret sin. 1 Thessalonians 2 and chapter 5 speaks of covetousness in terms of a mask. It's a cover.

It's something that goes on secretly. I cannot distinguish between your covetous thinking and your right thinking. You can put a mask on.

You can fool me. You can fool your wife. You can fool your best friend.

Covetousness hides behind a mask. It's a primal sin. It's also the most deceitful of sins.

And what's more, it's a choking sin. Matthew's Gospel chapter 13 and verse 22 sets up the story of the farmer who plants his seed. And you remember there is a third batch of soil where the thorns grow up, the weeds grow up, and they choke the good.

And that is what covetousness does. It's primal. Primary.

It's a mask. It's secret. It chokes the good.

And the Bible says, you can live your life in a covetous fashion, but remember at the end, you will be brought to book. Though a man gain the whole world through covetousness and forfeits his soul before God, he's a loser. I love the old Puritans.

I read Puritan preaching often. They were not doer, unhappy, miserable men. Quite the contrary, actually.

Some of them had a real ball in their lives. It said of the old Puritans that they lived in the world as though their citizenship was in heaven. In other words, what they did in their life was controlled by what they believed would happen afterwards.

And in this respect, they were following the example of our Lord who is for us the antidote to covetousness. What did I say that covetous really was? Absolute or selfishness made absolute. What is our Lord Jesus? He is selflessness personified.

And yet, let me stand my address on its head. He was a covetous man. But you see, there is a way in which you can baptize the word covetousness and instead of making it a negative term, make it a positive term.

Covetousness in the Greek gives us the English word zealous. And we read of our Lord in the prophetic scriptures speaking of his activity here on this earth that the zeal for God's house burns him up. What does that mean? Well, it means in a word that he is so concerned to establish the kingdom of God that every fiber of his being, every bit of his energy is invested in that.

He's concerned to see the glory of God established on the earth and he lives out his life to that end. And in so doing, he buries every other desire even though some of those desires might have been legitimate and honorable even for the Son of God. You see, he worked out the priorities.

He knew what was the most important thing. And he went for it. I think that there's truth in one of the old Puritans in the way that he interprets the Psalms and says that where the Psalmist possibly can be thought of speaking predictively of the attitudes of Christ, that is the best way to understand the Psalm.

So here is the Psalmist, and he says, One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. This is Jesus of Nazareth. Mature man of 28 years of age, he moves out into ministry.

He's not concerned about the Hilton Hotel. He'll take the holes that the foxes have vacated and he'll sleep there. He's not concerned about popularity.

He will take the slander of the people who utter third-rate jokes. He's not concerned about his own prestige. One thing, one thing, one thing alone, that is focal, the central point in the goal of our Lord Jesus, and that is to serve His God.

The zeal of your house has consumed me. It was our blessed Lord who told the story, you remember, of the merchant who sold everything he had in order to get the pearl of great price. You know, you don't really understand that parable unless you take it into its Middle Eastern setting and turn the clock back a couple of thousand years.

As there is an addiction that people can have in terms of opium, so there is an addiction that merchants in the Middle East had for procuring the greatest treasure of all, the unique pearl. Jesus is talking about a man who's heard of this pearl that is utterly indescribable, more important than the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the Tower of London. This man tracks across many desert roads.

He goes to many towns and many cities. He's seeking this pearl, and one day he sees it. And as he sees it, he's mesmerized by it.

There's nothing he would not do in order to possess it. So he liquidizes all his assets. He sells all his estates.

He gets all his money together, and he hands it over. And the day comes when he holds that pearl and he says, Eureka, I found it. It's mine.

He's obsessed. He wants it more than anything else. And I believe that our Lord Jesus was talking about the desire that he had to win men and women for the Father, for the gospel.

This is a holy covetousness. The zeal of thy house, it's consumed me. This is the Apostle Paul who catches something of the glimpses of our Lord Jesus, if you like, something of the radiance of our Savior.

And as he's writing to the Philippians, he says, This one thing I do, I covet only to win the prize of congratulations from the Lord Jesus for the way in which I ministered while I was here on planet earth. The Apostle then uses the language of coveting as he writes to the Corinthians and tells them to covet, to seek after the best gifts. Now, when you get to the end of your life, I wonder what state you will be in.

I mean by that as you review the way that you've lived the decades. You know, there's a lovely story of Samuel in 1 Samuel 12 verses 1 through to 4. He's got the king and he's got a sample of the Israel community in front of him. He's now backing out of the ministry and he's going into retirement and in just a little while he'll be dead.

And he said, I want you to testify of this. Can anyone say that I took your land? Can anyone of you say that I exploited my ministry for my own advantage? Has anyone of you got any mud to sling against me? Have I coveted what was yours? And they said, No, Samuel, you haven't. And when you turn over into the Acts of the Apostles in the 20th chapter and through the 33rd verse, here is someone very much like Samuel, only it's Paul the apostle.

And he says towards the end of his preaching ministry, I've coveted no man's gold or silver. In no way have I lived a covetous life. I have expended myself on the altar of service for the benefits of humanity.

And now, well, in a little while I'll go and face the king. You see, it's the man, it's the woman who likes covetousness in the negative sense, who doesn't fear death. I tell you, live all your life within the prospect of the day that you will die.

And when that day comes, you'll die bravely. For you will go through to offer to the Lord a life of service, which you lived while you were here on this earth. It says, Moses, you're not to covet.

You're not to covet the house of somebody else. You're not to covet the family life of somebody else. You're not to covet the successful business of somebody else.

You are to accept the lot that God has given you in your life and live within its parameters. You're not to live begrudgingly. Oh, it's easy to do that, isn't it? You see that somebody else, well, the lines have fallen on pleasant places in their lives as opposed to yours.

And you're coveting maybe their family life. Maybe you're coveting their business success. Maybe you're coveting as a preacher that congregation over against your own congregation.

No, says Moses, speaking for God, you're not to covet in any way. The only fashion in which it is right for you to have any covetous attitude at all is in the way in which that term can be baptized and used as descriptive of Christian service. Our blessed Lord stands out as a supreme example.

He coveted not wealth. He did not covet fame. The selfless man who on the cross gave his life so that your sin and my sin can be forgiven.

Now having responded to that, your life has to be lived in its afterglow in the same fashion as he lived his. That's the call of God through the 10th commandment. Keep that one standing and you've got the rest erect probably as well.

But if that goes down, the lot go. Let's pray. Father, we come before your throne and we pray that you will take our lives, order our priorities.

Enable us to offer to our Lord Jesus without qualification. Every aspect of who we are and what we own. And should there be covetousness about us, may it be that same covetousness that he showed.

The zeal for your house, the consuming desire for the spreading of the glory of God and the love for other people that caused him to give everything on the cross for their salvation. Amen. Number 25.

Let's stand and sing. I'd like to talk to you if that's your response. Father, we thank you for this day, a day spent in your court.

We're glad of the opportunity. Be with our friends here from Africa. Be with our brother from Zimbabwe who's going back this week.

We thank you for him and his fellowship with us during these last few weeks. Send him back in the power of your spirit. And others who've been through from Africa, who've been taking a course down at the Crown Agents seminars.

Lord, be with them and bless them, we pray. And Lord, we thank you for one another. Help us to live by the commandments, knowing the empowering of your spirit to enable us to keep them.

And do us good during this coming week. And this we ask in the name of Jesus and the people of God said, Amen. Good night.

God bless. Thanks for coming.