 And if you look over to 2 Kings chapter 9, here we see the story of King Ahab and we talked about him a few weeks ago. We see the story of King Ahab and he had many vineyards and he had a vineyard when he wanted this vineyard and it was a vineyard that he didn't have and it was apparently closer to where he was at. It wasn't that he didn't have vineyards but he just wanted this one. It was not his but he wanted it anyway. And he went out and he talked to his wife and inspired his wife and inspired to have a learned vineyard field. You see that Elijah puts the smackdown on Ahab here and he tells Ahab what's going to happen to his family because of what he's done. And it's interesting because you see Ahab basically, he's being covered in a second. He's coming in another man's property. I just want to show you tonight. This is the sermon that we're going to have at the top of the sermon tonight. We're going to have a competition. This is one of the six sins that God takes so seriously. He tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 that it'll be more to be put out of the church for these nights of sins. I want to show you tonight what it needs to be competition. Why God takes it so seriously and you know that it has serious consequences. If you look in 2 Kings chapter 9, I just want to show you something interesting about this story about Ahab. Remember the story of Ahab. Jehu is anointed king and his charge is to wipe out the house of Ahab. He's supposed to kill every male of Ahab. He's supposed to kill all of Ahab's family. If you look down in 2 Kings in chapter 9 and go to verse number 20. Here we have Joram and Ahaziah are together. And in verse number 20, the Bible says, And the watchman told Satan, he came even unto them and covered them not again. And the driving is like the driving of James, the son of Ibshi, where he's driving. So there's a couple interesting things here. First of all, the story kind of goes like this. A few verses back. All these watchmen, there's this guy driving towards where Joram is. And there's all these watchmen go out to meet him and find out what he's coming so fast. He drives like J. That means that, you know, I'm thinking it wasn't like this. I mean, I'm thinking J. He had a reputation for being a warrior. And he was coming fast and the Bible says, And people knew this man. They knew that when he was out to do something, he meant business. And they can tell from a distance. He's watchmen come out. He sends watchmen out. And J. Who basically tells them, You know what? You want to live, you're with me. You want to die, go back over there. So all the watchmen don't come back. So finally, Joram and his eye go out themselves. And we see, that's just a side note. In verse number 21, the Bible says, And Joram said, And his chariot was being ready. He called the watchmen and they were returning. And Joram, king of Israel, And his eye, king of Judah, went out. Each in his chariot. So both kings are there now. And they went out against J. Who had met him in the portion of Naboth, the Jesuit life. So remember a few weeks ago, When Joram, in a couple verses here, Is going to pull his bow back with his full strength. He's going to shoot that arrow straight through. When Joram was going to shoot that arrow straight through Joram, Right between his shoulders, the Bible says, They came out in his heart. It's interesting to note that he killed him On the property of Naboth's vineyard. Now, how many people think that's an accident? I mean, that is God sending a message About how he fell to Naboth. And then the Bible says, At the end, in verse number 26, It's interesting to see that it says, James, I surely have seen yesterday The blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. It's interesting to see that the Bible Is easier that Naboth's sons were also killed In this covetous transaction. Which would make sense, because if someone dies Or a stone, you know, you think that the sons Would inherit the vineyard. So I'm sure Jezebel and Ahab Had to take care of them as well. So that's what the Bible fights for. But I just want to give you kind of an intro That the sin of covetousness Is taken very seriously by the Lord. Now I want to look at a covetous tonight. I want to look at covetousness. And I want to look at it from three different levels. I want to look at it from a global level. I want to come down to a national level. And I want to look at it from a personal level Of what it means for us. Okay, now covetousness. What does it mean to be covetous? The definition is this. The general definition. It's marked by an inordinate desire For wealth or possessions Or for another's possessions. So you're desiring something basically That is not yours or that belongs To someone else. In Exodus chapter 20 verse 17 We see in the Ten Commandments This is one of them. The Bible says Thou shalt not come at thy neighbor's house Thou shalt not come at thy neighbor's wife Nor his man's servant, nor his maid's servant Nor his ox, nor his ass Nor anything that is thy neighbor's To not covet other people's property. So let's look at the problems That covetousness causes in the world. First, turn to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. The Bible tells us The answer of what causes wars In this world, unjust wars In particular, the Bible says In James chapter 4 And starting in verse 1 The Bible says Whence come wars and fighting amongst you Among you How may not hence The meaning of your lust That war in your members Then the Bible says Ye lust Meaning you desire And have not Ye kill And desire to have Meaning people will kill To get things that they want And cannot obtain Ye fight and war Yet ye have not Because ye ask not Now turn to Luke 11 21 So the Bible here is explaining to us Distinguishes between self-defense And an unjust war On a fuss And in Luke 11 21 The Bible says When a strong man armed Keepeth his place His goods are in peace Now there's two words in there I want you to notice When a strong man armed Keepeth his house His house And then he says it again His goods are in peace You have every right To defend yourselves For property Things like that In the Bible What the Bible is telling us In James chapter 4 is We're unjust wars Which are the vast majority Of all wars That have taken place Throughout history Is basically driven Through the lust of men's hearts It's many wanting things That other people have It's really that simple When you think about it You think about all the You know you could You could read For years and years And years on geopolitics And all these different things But really what it boils down to When man and nations go to war Is one nation wants something That another nation doesn't want to give So they fight And they kill To get those things You know it's ownership of land It's influence of land It's ownership of influence Over resources that that land has Or those people in that land The bottom line Let me introduce you To somebody else I know I've introduced you To a lot of people today I want to introduce you To one person In this sermon tonight And I want to introduce you To a man called Smedley Butler He lived Smedley Butler lived In the early 1900s He was a United States Marine For a general He was the highest rank Authorized at that time And at the time of his death He was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history During his 34 year career As a Marine He participated in military Actions in the Philippines, China And in Central America And the Caribbean And finally in World War I Butler later became An outspoken critic Of the U.S. force For their consequences He was highly decorated At the time of his death That was highly decorated Marine in U.S. history He won the Medal of Honor Twice So the man knew about war He had been in several wars He knew all about war He wrote He gave a speech After he retired And the speech became so popular That he wrote it into a short book And the book 90 pages long 90 pages long The book is called War is a Racket And if you've never read it You should read it It'll answer a lot of questions On why things are going on The way they are But it's actually He's basically defining Biblical concepts for us In this 90 page booklet So basically what is a racket? A racket is an illegal Or dishonest scheme For obtaining money A racket is what Jezebel did To get Naboth's vineyard She ran a racket Against him She was racketeering You could say She came up with a scheme That was dishonest To gain possession Of this man's property And Smedley Butler Wrote this book That says war is a racket I'm going to read you A quote from this book That summarizes the book itself War is a racket It always has been It is possibly the oldest Easily the most profitable Surely the most vicious The only one international in scope Is the only one in which The profits are reckoned in dollars And the losses in lives A racket is best described I believe as something that is not What it seems to the majority of the people Only a small inside group Knows what it is about It is conducted for the benefit Of the very few At the expense of the very many Out of war a few people Make huge fortunes You see this man fought In so many wars It was hard for him to not see What was actually happening His solution The most interesting part of his booklet Is he details the profits Of several different industries During peacetime And then during wartime Like the steel industries And what we would call The military industrial complex The industries that make Machines of war That make weapons of war Things like this Where people retool Factories to make weapons of war And the profits go from You know ten, twelve percent To three hundred, four hundred percent During times of war So he's saying that war is a racket That is pushed by people That want to make money So his solution He doesn't want to be a person That doesn't give solutions So he gives three solutions To stop this racket And it's very interesting How these solutions line up With the bible His first solution is this Make war unprofitable Butler suggests that the means for war Should be conscripted Before those who would fight the war It can be smashed effectively Only by taking profit out of war The only way to smash this racket Is to conscript capital And industry and labor Before the nation's manhood Can be conscripted So basically go to these factory owners And the military industrial complex And say before we fight this war You all are going to sign up To make the same pay That the soldier in the trench makes He's like that would stop war That's number one Number two Acts of war to be decided by those Who fight it He also suggests that a limited referendum To determine if the war is to be fought Eligible to be vote To vote would be those who risk death On the battlefield Number three Limitation of militaries to self-defense That's pretty biblical right there For the United States Butler recommends that the navy be limited By law to operating within 200 miles Of the coastline And the army restricted to the territorial Limits of the country Ensuring that war if fought Can never be one of aggression Especially items one and three here Are designed to quell the covetous desires Of men deciding to go to war If there's no money to be made Number one That's number one He said if there's no money And number three If the rules don't allow for such types of wars The desire is nullified The covetousness is shut down Now I don't know if he was Christian I don't know But these are biblical concepts To keep wars to defensive wars To just wars And to not have people just go to war To lust after somebody else's property Now the examples in my lifetime In the last 20 or 25 years It's all just covetousness Is all it is I can't think of a just war in my life And I could argue that I can't think of a just war In the last 150 years But that would be more of a debate I don't want to get into politics But it's very easy to see that The area of the Middle East, for example Is an area that is vital to many different nations' economies And right or wrong I don't want to see the economy in the United States crash And I don't want to see people in the United States suffer But if we have to go and destroy a country Every 20 years Just so we can keep things going The way they're going here That's not biblical at all It's covetousness The drone bombings that just happened a few days ago In Saudi Arabia is going to be a great example of this That area of the world And what happens with those resources In that area of the world Is extremely vital to the economy here The economy in Russia The economy in China The economy in India The economy is all over the world And there's all these interests That have interest there There is no threat to us There is not al-Qaeda The terrorists as they get us all worked up Are not going to take over the United States My high school wrestling team is better armed Than most of al-Qaeda probably ever was A group of people with 384 toyotas Is not going to take over the United States So they get you in these fear-mongering Attitudes on the news channels And all these different things And it's really just covetousness We've got a racket going here We need to keep things going We need to keep control of certain resources In certain places And that's what it all boils down to Unfortunately it's not biblical at all You know we need to learn to use our own resources Turn to Matthew chapter 24 Matthew chapter 24 Now let me just say this The military industrial complex That you've always heard This is also not a conspiracy Or not a false conspiracy anyway It may be a conspiracy But it's real The only industry that I have seen In my 20 year career That never stops hiring Is military industrial companies They're always hiring Always They're always looking for engineers Technicians Technical people of all kinds It's big business folks It's big business And a lot of people work there And a lot of people make a lot of money working there In Matthew 24 In verse 6 the Bible reads And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars See that you not be troubled For all these things must come to pass But the end is not yet So folks what the Bible is telling us here Is that this whole issue Is just going to keep going And keep getting worse So let's not be surprised Let's not be offended But let's just know That it's driven by covetousness It's driven by covetousness Now if we look at the next level And we come down to the national level You know if we look at covetousness At a level of a nation We talked about it this morning We're looking at things like political Ideas like socialism Socialism is driven and fed By covetousness It's somebody coveting something That somebody else worked for It's that simple Under 30 you saw this morning Under 30 in this country If you take a poll of people Under the age of 30 51% of them Will have a positive view Of socialism It makes perfect sense If you don't have a biblical what If you don't have a biblical world view It makes perfect sense You know someone who has no job Who's living in their parent's basement Who has piled up student loan debt And has no prospects You know when you tell them That you're just going to give them All these free things That sounds pretty good To that person It's interesting But you know it's not good It's also a nice interesting fact That there's never been more people In this country under the age of 30 Living with their parents Living at home So I believe that we've kind of Reached this hump already In this country maybe 15, 20 years ago With the baby boomers And it's harder and harder To make a living now I believe that a dollar goes less Doesn't go as far as it used to Obviously We've passed that hump So now you get this generation of kids You know these 51% of kids That want something that somebody else has That's covetousness the Bible says You know we saw this morning If you have a different world view Than the Bible It all just makes perfect sense In 2 Thessalonians 3 In verse 10 the Bible says For even when we were with you This we commanded you That if any would not work Neither should he eat That's the Bible's world view Of it So it's not a socialist World view at all But look you're not going to get Elected with that campaign slogan It's just not going to work So even it doesn't matter Republicans, Democrats They're all the same They're all preaching the same thing It's two wings on the same bird That's what it is And the sooner you figure that out The better off you'll be Now look you say What's wrong with supporting You know half the country What you need to understand Is that it's dangerous I told you this morning Communism is dangerous The government is force That's the problem You know Naboth Didn't want to give up his vineyard He was forced to give it up They killed him for his vineyard That's what the government will do Stop paying your taxes If you don't believe me See what happens Don't pay your taxes You know if you're taking something And you're getting checks From the government That money has been taken By force Essentially from the barrel Of a gun from somebody else Because if you stop paying your taxes They will put you in jail And if you won't go They will literally kill you That has happened in this country In the not so recent past That's why communists killed A hundred million people In the last hundred years Do an experiment If you don't believe me Do an experiment Go to a nice neighborhood In Fresno Go knock on somebody's door And go and bring them down To somebody that's living In a tent under a bridge And say hey Here's what we're gonna do Guy in the house We're gonna sell your house And we're gonna give half to you And we're gonna give half to the guy in the tent Let me know how many takers you get You're not gonna get any takers Then what if you say How about if we kill you If you don't do it Then you might have more success If you do that But that's how it works The government is force Socialism is covetousness And I'm gonna prove that to you From the Bible Covetousness is the roots Of socialism Now on the personal level This is what it leads to Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2 Ecclesiastes chapter 2 The Bible teaches us Where we are supposed to get Our possessions This guy had a palace The guy that we just read about Had a palace And he had goods in his palace He got those from somewhere And it didn't say that It was wrong to have those things But let's look at a personal level And then we'll come back to that In Ecclesiastes chapter 2 Ecclesiastes chapter 2 I'm gonna first read for you First Kings 3 We're gonna read about Solomon A little bit here And Solomon is a really interesting case And it's kind of a sad story When you look at the whole picture Of Solomon's life But there's so many things You can learn from the life of Solomon If you look at First Kings You stay in Ecclesiastes 2 I'm gonna read for you First Kings chapter 3 And I'm gonna show you How Solomon started out I don't want to read the whole thing here In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon In a dream by night And God said ask what I will give thee Solomon has just taken over the kingdom From his father David after he died And Solomon said Thou has showed unto thy servant David My father great mercy According as he walked before the In truth and in righteousness In an uprightness of heart with thee And thou has kept him In this great kindness That thou has given him a son To sit on his throne Me, he's saying As it is this day And now oh Lord my God Thou has made thy servant king Instead of David my father And I am but a little child I now know how I know not how to go out or come in And thy servant is in the midst of thy people Which thou has chosen a great people Thou cannot be numbered nor counted For multitude Give therefore thy servant An understanding heart to judge thy people That I may discern between good and bad For who is able to judge this Thys so great a people So basically God comes to Solomon And he says And Solomon's a young man He's a young child Probably under the age of 20 And he says what do you want? And Solomon has the humbleness to say You know what? Give me a discerning heart To judge this great people You know he shows respect to his father He shows respect to God And he says just give me a discerning heart And then God God basically I won't read the whole thing But God basically says Because you asked for that I will give you that discerning heart And I will make you wiser than any other man And I will also make you richer Than anybody else So God gave him everything right And if we look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2 Now look you know covetousness Here's the rub of covetousness If you get really covetous And you become covetous It will never make you happy It can't It can't make you happy I used to drive an hour and a half From Sacramento to work And I was on this two lane highway For like an hour And it was just stacked lined up With cars the whole way And there was always this guy That was trying to zip out in traffic And get one car ahead One car ahead One car ahead And I'm just like man You're risking everybody's life To get two seconds ahead There is no front of this line Is what I thought right There's no front You know that's kind of like how If you live a covetous life It will be You will just get more miserable And more miserable And more miserable The Bible says He that loves a silver Will not be satisfied by silver I mean it's God puts that curse on it If you get covetous And that's what you live for It's called you know Keeping up with the Joneses right I mean my first experience With keeping up with the Joneses Is when my wife and I First moved to Texas And we just couldn't believe it I mean it was all these People that they would buy And in Texas housing is very cheap You could buy a nice big house For not a lot of money Especially to California people And we would see these people You know that I worked with Move into these big houses And the first thing they talked about was Yeah but we really want to be In this neighborhood These people would go And they would live in their Nice big house And they would go look at houses On the weekends I mean it's crazy But they weren't happy Where they were at And we bought you know We bought a house It was about half the size Of everybody else And they were like Why didn't you buy a bigger house Because we wanted my wife To stay home with our kids Which we did not have yet We were planning for that But it'll never make you happy That's the irony of it Let's look at Solomon In Ecclesiastes chapter two Because Solomon is a great example For us because Solomon did Get to the front of the line Look at Ecclesiastes chapter two And let's start in verse four And Solomon says I made me great works I builded me houses I planted me vineyards I made me gardens and orchards And I planted trees In them of all kinds of fruits I made me pools of water To water therewith With the wood that bringeth forth trees I got me servants and maidens And I had servants born in my house Also I had great possessions Of great and small cattle Above all that were in Jerusalem before me I gathered me also silver and gold And the peculiar treasure of kings In the provinces I got me men singers And women singers And the delights Of the sons of men As musical instruments And that of all sorts So I was great And increased more than any That were before me in Jerusalem Also my wisdom remained with me He increased more than any that were He got to the front He got to the front Now skip down to verse number seventeen And see what that did for him And in verse number seventeen Solomon says Therefore I hated life He got to the front He got everything He ever wanted And he was miserable For it So it's ironic That if that's what you push for You'll never be happy You will never find joy there Ever And as a matter of fact If you read Solomon's words And you listen to the example Of Solomon's life It made him miserable It didn't say I was unhappy He said I hated life I hated life I mean that's a strong statement To say that you have this one life On this earth and you hate it That's strong to say it that way Now look how do you find joy How do you find joy in this life If it's not cars and wanting things And all this What is it Turn to Psalm 51 Psalm 51 is a verse in the Bible Or a chapter in the Bible That was almost ruined for me As a Lutheran Because it was one of the things That we chanted in the services And things like that But once you know what it actually means It's absolutely beautiful In the middle of your Bible You'll find the book of Psalms Let me get there myself In Psalm 51 Let's look at verse number 12 So here you have David Who has just He has just been found to be in sin His son has just died He just committed adultery with Bathsheba Because he coveted some other man's wife By the way And he's reconciling with God God slayed his youngest son His son died David asked for his son not to die The answer was no And instead of getting mad at God And having a miserable life What does David do? This Psalm is one of the windows Into David's heart I believe by the way You say David He made some stupid mistakes in his life But the Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart I believe that this is one of those windows Where we can actually see David's heart And you think about all the things That he just went through The chastisement from God That he just endured And how does he react? In verse number 12 David says Let's go to verse 10 David says, Create in me a clean heart, oh God And renew a right spirit within me He says renew a right spirit within me, God Do you think that that's a prayer That God would answer? I would think that if you prayed that prayer That God would answer that prayer Just about every time if you meant it Verse 11 Cast me not away from thy presence And take not thy Holy Spirit from me And then in verse number 12 He says Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation And uphold me with thy free spirit Now that's a great statement right there Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation He never thought he lost his salvation He just said restore unto me the joy of my salvation He had been through so many hard things And so many horrible things in the last In the recent past He said restore unto me the joy Now think about the joy of your salvation How could you ever be in a bad mood Or upset or down in your life And I know you will be And I will be And you know We will all have low points in our life But really when you look at the context Of your salvation That's a good prayer God, you know, I'm down in the dumps Restore unto me the joy of my salvation And then verse number 13 It gets even better Because then he says When I have that joy back What's he going to do? Then I will teach transgressors thy ways And sinners shall be converted unto thee He's going soul winning Isn't that awesome? Give me my joy back And I'm going to go out And I'm going to get people saved That's what he said And that's going to make him even more joyful And you know what? You know what helps you When you're down in the dumps, by the way? Go help somebody else About six weeks ago We were half, I mean We were somewhere in the middle of this move And some catastrophic thing happened It wasn't catastrophic But at that time It seemed like it was catastrophic It was like all these things are going wrong It was a Friday night And I'm like, I don't know I don't know why these things are happening And I don't know why this happened I don't know why I had a friend whose sewer line He was digging it up on his house He just bought a new house in his sewer He had nobody could take a shower for a week Have a family of six people, seven people With no running water Let me know how things are going for you And he's digging this sewer line up And I'm just like Everything's falling apart And I'm going to help Jose dig up his sewer line That's what I did You know what? It was selfish of me to do it And it worked Because I went and I helped this guy I'm sitting here Every swing of the pickaxe I just felt better and better and better So go help somebody Go help somebody out You know, when you're depressed And you're down in the dumps And you have no joy I know I'm kind of getting off topic here But you have no joy It's really because You're pointing things too much In your own direction It's selfish It's selfish Get your joy back Ask God to restore Because guess what you have joy for Guess what you should have joy for No matter where you're at in your life The joy of your salvation Because you deserve to burn in hell Right? I mean that's a terrible thought We go out and we try to explain hell To people Every single week We have to get them to understand Hell to get saved Period Maybe we should think about those words ourselves And be like, hey That could have been me Now it doesn't matter What's happening With my air conditioning Or my job Or anything Because I have the joy of my salvation And then I can get out there And I can share that with other people Because when you have no joy You're not going to want to share it with anybody When your joy is just gone So that's where your joy comes from Your joy doesn't come from Wanting other things that people have That aren't yours Now Don't lust after things that other people have That's covetousness On a personal level We're not to lust after things that aren't ours But there's a flip side here Okay In Psalm 128 No, you guys turn to Ecclesiastes 5 I'll read for you Psalm 128 Ecclesiastes 5 Just a couple pages over from where you're at Psalm 128, the Bible reads this For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands Happy that shalt thou be And it shall be well with thee Now look at Ecclesiastes 5 in verse 18 Behold that which I have seen It is good and comely for one to eat And to drink And to enjoy the good of all his labor That he taketh under the sun All the days of his life Which God hath given him For it is his portion It belongs to you The things that you get from your labor That's your portionate That's his palace That's his goods That's where he got it From his labor And then in verse 19 Every man also to whom God hath given riches And wealth And hath given him power And to take his portion And to rejoice in his labor This is the gift of God It's a gift that God provides for us On this earth In this life For us To enjoy the fruits of our labor So there's nothing wrong With working hard And buying a nice car for your wife Or working hard And finding a good place to live For your family If you work for those things So this is the biblical teaching And in 1 Timothy 6 verses 9 We see that it's a slippery slope though That's the problem And especially in the United States of America It's a really slippery slope In 1 Timothy chapter 6 In verse 9 the Bible says But they that will be rich Fall into temptation and a snare And into many foolish and hurtful lusts Which drown men in destruction And perdition So there's nothing wrong We see in Ecclesiastes 5 There's nothing wrong with working hard And enjoying the fruits of your labor Nothing at all But when it goes too far And your desire becomes to become rich And you can't ever get enough That's when that lust for those riches Is going to be a snare to you And it will eventually turn into covetousness Where you'll be wanting things That are not yours And then you're at that point Where you're never going to be happy Where you will never be able to enjoy your life It's the example I gave you of those people That were living in those beautiful houses I think of those houses today And I'm like, I will never live in a house like that That's completely fine I will never... But they weren't even happy living in that house Imagine that, right? These mansions these people were living in You know, in the irony of those people Just the irony of it all Not only will it never make them happy But they're running in this group of people They're all the same type of people They're all trying to impress each other But they all really hate each other anyway When one of them buys a house in a certain neighborhood All the other people in that group were like When are we going to be able to live in a better neighborhood than that? They're just coveting and coveting and coveting There's no joy even in friendships In that type of situation So look, work hard, fulfill your biblical duties And enjoy your portion There's nothing wrong with that But the trouble is that it's always wanting more Wanting something for nothing And the bottom line is if you didn't work for it And it wasn't a gift It's not yours It is the bottom line And you're being covetous if you want it Now, turn to Matthew 22 Why does God take this so seriously? Let's think about that for a minute I'm going to read 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 11 Which is the core verse of this sermon series And then I want to explain to you why covetousness Is taken so seriously by God That it is put in this list of six sins That is not to be allowed in the church And in 1 Corinthians 5, 11 the Bible says Now I've written unto you Not to keep company of any man that is called a brother Be a fornicator or covetous Or idolater or railer or drunkard or an extortioner Which such and one know not to eat So in Matthew 22 I want to explain to you here Why God takes this sin so seriously In Matthew 22, look at verse 37 In verse 37 the Bible says Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart And with all thy soul and with all thy mind This is the first and great commandment And the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself So remember that Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself Now turn to Luke 10 Turn to Luke 10 In Luke 10 in verse 30 We see the parable of the good Samaritan as it's called And let's just read it real quickly We'll read verse 30 through verse 35 And Jesus answering said A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho And fell among thieves Which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him And departed leaving him half dead And by chance there came down a certain priest that way And when he saw him he passed on the other side And likewise a Levite when he was at the place Came and looked on him and passed by on the other side But a certain Samaritan, these were the outcasts in the north They weren't even considered to be Jews anymore But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was And when he saw him he had compassion on him And he went to him and bound up his wounds Pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast And brought him to an inn and took care of him And on the moral when he departed he took out two pants And gave them to the host and said unto him Take care of him whatsoever thou spendest more When I come again I will repay thee So we are supposed to take care of people We are supposed to as Matthew 22 said Love thy neighbor as thyself That is the opposite of coveting their possessions That's why, is it a serious commandment? It's the second most important commandment Because all the commandments can be broken into those two commandments Love the Lord thy God And love thy neighbor as thyself That's it, it's the second greatest commandment So when we covet something that our neighbor has Now who's our neighbor, right? Remember the pie of all the people in the world? We have our brothers and sisters that are here Which they're pretty much our neighbor too, right? We're supposed to love each other We have all the unsaved people out there And then we have this sliver of people that are rejected by God Their reprobates, their false prophets Their reprobates, their unnatural wicked people We're not supposed to love them They're the enemies of God But our neighbor, everybody else and even our personal enemies But here it says our neighbor, we're supposed to love as ourselves We're not supposed to covet anything of theirs It's the opposite, so that's why it's so important It's also very contagious as a lot of sin is And it leads to other sins I've not experienced this myself And I haven't mentioned it yet tonight But coveting your neighbor's wife is also part of that commandment You know, coveting your neighbor's wife Now I've heard of this happening I've never seen it happening where adultery happens in a church And it causes havoc in the church It could split churches It's a terrible, terrible thing to even think about So let's have a culture moment We're going to have these culture moments The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 522 Abstain from all appearance of evil I've never seen adultery happen in a church But if we're going to abstain from all appearance of evil And we're going to have a good culture here We should really be thinking about this Bible Talking about coveting someone else's wife This means that if we're going to abstain from evil Men, there is no reason for a man To be talking to someone else, some other man's wife There's no reason That's a culture that we need to have here And I'm not saying that when somebody's wife walks by You have to be like this and, you know, be all weird But there's no reason for me to have a long conversation With somebody else's, with some woman that I am not married to Now I'm the leader of this satellite church There's going to be times when people want to talk to me That's fine If there's a woman that wants to talk to me And she doesn't want to talk to my wife And she needs to talk to me My wife will be in the room and the three of us can talk together There's no problem with that Another good way of that to work Is if a man and wife have an issue If the man wants to come and talk with me That's probably the best solution But there's no reason for men and women Who are not married to each other And married to other people to be having conversations It's a culture that we should have here And you know what? I appreciate that culture That's the culture that's at Verity and Sacramento And I love it Because nothing's more awkward for me Than when I would be somewhere And somebody else's wife would want to come up Or, you know, whatever you would see I mean, it's just, it's weird, it's strange It's strange And it's just a culture that we should have To not, to abstain from the appearance of evil So now, back to covetousness You know, it's sad that a lot of people fall into this Especially in the country that we live in But if we go back to the global situation, folks It's hardly Christian to covet the resources of other nations And cause, you know, hundreds of thousands Or millions of deaths because of it It's not biblical It's not something that the biblical worldview Will teach you at all It's hardly Christian at the national level To follow other people's property Or to ask the government by force to do so That's not biblical at all It's covetousness, you know And finally at the individual level It violates the second greatest commandment It's really simple, right? It's not hard to understand Look, work hard, enjoy the fruits of your labor But, you know, don't work 90 hours a week Just because you want more cars That's not right You're going to slide down that slope And you're going to start getting miserable in your life You're going to have consequences with your family You have an obligation meant to your family You know, I have met people that Sacrifice their family because of work And so it's a balance We're commanded to support our families And to provide for our families But we need to balance our other responsibilities That the Bible puts on us for that So covetousness, it's a serious, serious sin I've never even, you know It's a serious sin that God doesn't want in the church And like I said, you know We're not on a hair trigger to kick people out of the church This series was more of a reason To shine the light on these sins So we can shine the light on and help each other And help each other from a biblical point of view Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for This church where we thank you for All the gifts that you've given us in our life Lord, we ask that you just keep us all content Lord, we ask that you just keep the covetous spirit Of this country and people outside in the world Just out of the hearts of the people in this church Lord, we thank you for your word Lord, we thank you for just the wonderful balance And just how much sense the Bible makes, Lord Just thank you for this day, thank you for this church Bless our week, Lord, and bring us back On Thursday for church, in Jesus' name we pray Amen