Tuesday, June 23, 2009
How Much Do You Need? The Danger of Coveting, Part 10 of 60
TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).
"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s" (Deuteronomy 5:21).
IDEA: Unbridled desire can spread like a fire through our lives.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand how covetousness works in their lives.
Have you ever been tempted to shoplift?
Can you sympathize with those who do?
Do you think shoplifting was as prevalent a crime in the 19th century as it is today?
One of the founders of Woolworths Department Stores revolutionized merchandising with the bright idea of putting the merchandise out on tables or in showcases for everyone to see. Before then, people would tell a clerk what they wanted. The clerk would get it from the storeroom and present it to the customer for purchase. But the founders of Woolworths were the first to lay the merchandise out to be seen and touched and savored. The rest is history.
I. We live in a society in which a whole industry works on our desires.
It not only focuses on desires we have, but creates in us desires for things we did not know that we lacked.
The desire for what we see often spills over into taking what we see. It doesn’t seem as bad when we take from a store something that is impersonal, but that’s wrong. But we often want what belongs to our neighbors as well.
This disordered desire leads to the breaking of all the commandments.
II. Desire can be like a match which ignites a fire which destroys a forest.
The match itself is not wrong. In fact, it can be good. But when the fire gets out of control, it leads to all kinds of damage.
No one has ever been arrested for being covetous, but they have been put in prison for what covetousness produced.
Look at what happened in the destruction of great corporations. The wealthy executives desired more of what they had enough of already. That led to falsifying records, to stealing from employees, and defrauding investors. What was interesting is that many of these CEOs insisted that they did nothing wrong. Why would they think that?
