Well, it's good to be back in the house of the Lord. As many of you know, I've been sick for a couple of weeks and I missed a couple of Sundays and that I was scheduled, well, actually one Sunday I was scheduled to preach, actually a mic preach that was already scheduled, I was helping a church down south with some matters down there. So I was scheduled to be out last week, but the week before I was sick and Jared was gracious enough to fill in sort of at the last minute and did a splendid job and we're glad for that. I came in this morning and Rebecca Henry put her arm around me and said, okay, tough guy. And I thought, you know, what she was implying was that, you know, I guess perhaps the way I carry myself, I carry myself a little bit like a tough guy. I don't know if you were scared of me or not, but there are people that are scared of me. And I see that hand. But anyway, you know, what she was implying is is that, you know, here is, you know, you think about this. When you get sick, especially like when you have a virus or a bug, either whether it's bacterial or viral, you know, one of the things I was thinking of as I was sick these last couple of weeks is, how can this little tiny microscopic little, you know, either, you know, bacteria or virus, how can this little tiny thing make a man sick? It just doesn't, it doesn't compute this little tiny thing that you can't even see with a naked eye kind of takes you out, wipes you out, puts you on your back, makes you feel weak as a dish rag and you're just not able to do anything. And you know, it's really kind of amazing when you think about it, you know, something so small can have such a big impact and have such a big effect in your lives. And I was thinking about that and I was sort of making a spiritual analogy there, you know, because very often there are little things, little temptations, little sins that we are confronted with that can have the same result as a virus or a bacteria in our bodies. They can take us out, if you will, they can take us down. They can rob us of not only our joy, but our strength. And this is one of the reasons why we have been studying the Ten Commandments. We've been studying the Ten Commandments as a means, as a way, you know, to learn how to live the Christian life. This is what we want to do. We want to live the kind of life that is pleasing to God. And so we've gone back to the Old Testament, to the Old Covenant and we're looking at what God said pleases him. And so I thought what we might do first is since we've been away for a couple weeks from this topic is to do a little bit of review. And I want you to look with me at Exodus chapter 20. And I want you to follow me here as we do a little bit of review. And what we've already said before we look at the 10th and final commandment this morning. One of the things we've said about the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments, the more law of God, what pleases God, what it is that God wants us or from us or requires of us, the Ten Commandments are about what God has said. Look at what chapter 20 verse 1 says in God spoke all of these words. And we've made a lot of a lot over that statement. We've made a lot over that sentence by saying this is the word of God. I've spoke these words in fact in such a special and significant way that it has said that these words, these commandments were written by the very finger of God Himself. We have an expression about things like this. We say they're written in stone. And what that means is that refers to their permanence, that these commandments are permanent. They were written by the very finger of God Himself. And then remember what happened to them. They were placed in the ark of the covenant. So they were written by the finger of God, then they were placed in the ark of the covenant, the place that represents the very presence of God Himself. And then we know where that ark was put, that ark was put in the holiest place in the temple. The most holiest place in the temple is where the ark was. There's where the law is, okay. Here's the law written by the very finger of God put in the ark of the covenant and then placed in the holiest place in the temple. We're not going to tell us something about how we're to look at what God has said, right? How we should treasure it, how we should value it, the kind of worth that we should ascribe to it. God has put this in the most special place in the temple. And if you think about that, what does the New Testament say about the temple of God? Paul says, no, you're not, that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And what should be in that sacred place? What should be in that most holy place? What should be in what is called in scripture, the Holy of Holies, right? It should be the law of God. It should be the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, what pleases God, what God requires from His people. Now when you think about that, folks, this is either absurd or it's amazing. I mean, if you think about that, as Francis said, God is there and he is not silent. God is there and he has spoken. Now, you know, sometimes I think that this becomes all way too familiar to us. And as Dallas Woolard said, familiarity breeds unfamiliarity and unfamiliarity breeds contempt and contempt breeds ignorance. And sometimes I think that's where I get sometimes, you know, is because, you know, the idea that God has spoken, especially in the way that he has spoken in these Ten Commandments, that idea sometimes becomes way too familiar to me, to the extent that I don't treasure it, I don't value it in the way that I should. And what I want you to get you to see is that really only two options were something like this, this, you know, to say that God has spoken is either the most absurd thing that you have ever heard in your life or it's the most amazing thing you have ever heard in your life. But I don't know that there's any middle ground with that. I don't know how many of you watch cable news. You have to confess many times and if you know me, you know that the cable news channel runs endlessly at my home whenever I'm working, whenever I'm home, I've got the news channel on. I've got the news cycles over and over again, the same news all day long, all right. But or at least I listened to it in the background, I have told you before that some friends have been over at my house and they've looked at the bottom of my TV set and you know where they have the ticker banner going across the TV set where they have all the latest news is breaking across the bottom of your screen. And that particular logo is burned into my TV screen. It doesn't matter what channel you're on. You can see the Fox News Network logo on the bottom of my television screen. That's how much it's on, all right. So I watch a lot of news. Now I don't know how many of you watch the Fox News Network. That's the cable news that I watch. It's not really as they claim fair and balanced. Let's face it. It's biased towards what I like to hear and that's why I like it so much. I don't think there really is any fair and balanced news on TV, all right. It's just that I happen to identify with their particular slant. More than I do would say the Communist News Network or one of those other television, the Alphabet News Networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, you know, your Alphabet News. But I identify more with Fox News and if you've watched Fox News, you know that the number one rated news program on Fox News is the Bill O'Reilly show. Now look, I don't particularly care for Bill O'Reilly. People seem to be polarized by him, they love him or they hate him, you know, he's not quite my cup of tea. He's way too liberal for me. But we watch this show, especially now when you're in between sports times, you know, I mean, you basically got golf and tennis left, you know. I enjoy watching those things, but it's not like the three big ones, basketball, football, baseball, which you know, we still got ways to go baseball. But anyways, I watch Fox News Network and I watch the Bill O'Reilly show from time to time. Now, if you know, if you've watched him and you know him and know his show, you know that he breaks his show up into segments. He breaks his show up into what he calls the memo, his talking points. And then a little later on in this show, this is the part, my wife and I really like the two parts where he does, you know, the email where people write in and then you see what they say about Bill O'Reilly and it comes from all different spectrums and that's sort of entertaining and humorous. But he has this one part of his show he calls the most ridiculous item of the day. Have you seen it? The most ridiculous item of the day, what he does, he picks up, he picks something out of the news that, you know, that he thinks is the most ridiculous thing of the day. And you know, that brings me back to my point here. If God has spoken, folks, it's either really true or it's the most ridiculous item in the history of humankind. There isn't any middle ground there. If God has really spoken, it's amazing or absurd. It's really true or it's the ridiculous item in history. It's not the kind of thing that you can read or that you can hear and then you can kind of y'all and say, what's next? We're saying that God Almighty, the king and creator of the universe, has broken through time and space and spoken. And that's either amazing or absurd. Listen, folks, do not let your children play with people who said God told me, all right? Not a good idea because we recognize that people that think that God speaks to them all the time are probably suffering from some kind of mental imbalance and when you understand that you realize exactly what is being said here. God has spoken. And yes, we believe that is amazing. We believe that is really true and therefore that's why it's not absurd and not the most ridiculous item of the day. God has spoken. This is about what God said. The moral law is about what God said. What He said in a way that He has not said anything else. He has written this with His very finger. He has put this in the arc of the covenant and then placed it in the most holy place in Israel, the Holy of Holies in the temple. This is about what God said, but not always about what God said. It's about what God did. Look at the second verse. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt and out of the land of slavery. This is about an act of God's grace and how He redeemed His people from the bondage of slavery. And so the law is really about the grace of God. People talk all the time about what's the difference between law and grace. How do those two things relate? How do law and grace relate? How does the law and the gospel relate? Well folks, it's always really been the same. The law that God is about to give the people of Israel is based on His redeeming grace. This is about what God did. It's about His saving act of bringing His people out of bondage. This is what God has done. He's a God of action. He has acted on His people's behalf in grace and mercy. And then that becomes the motive by which we respond to that grace and gratitude. You know, as Jared's walking out the back door, I'll use him as a sermon illustration. I don't know. When I listened to a sermon last sometime a week ago, I was listening to a sermon online and he started out trying to imitate me. Did you remember that? I didn't think it was a very good imitation. I bought him for his effort. But you know what his point was. In fact, when I heard it, I went like, I was so scared because what I tell guys all the time when they come into the pulpit is be yourself. You can't be anybody else. So be yourself, all right? So Jared got in there and when he started out, you know, according to Thomas Jefferson in 1766, you know, and I went, that's not Jared. What have you done with Jared? And I was like, oh my goodness, he's breaking my moral code here of, you know, be yourself in the pulpit. And of course, then I found out he was only kidding. He was trying to imitate his pastor and then he went on to say, why is because in my sermons, if you don't have at least one historical example, then it's really just not a sermon, right? Well, and of course, that's true. So now I'm going to give you a little historical example, okay? And by the way, it has to do with Thomas and Jefferson and John Adams. You know, we just finished celebrating what? We're just finished celebrating the 4th of July, right? Okay, our national day of independence. And I don't know how many of you know this, but Jefferson and Adams died on the same day. Did you know that, and you know that they was July 4th? Here are two signers of the Declaration of Independence die within hours between the two on Independence Day. And at one point, somebody Jefferson had actually been knocked out, cold, really, you know, was almost combitose for two days. And he woke up on July 3rd and the first words out of his mouth were, is it the 4th yet? And they said, it's just hours away. And then Adams inquired about whether or not it was the 4th when he was lying on his sick bed. And they told him, yes. And he said, this is a great day. This is a good day. And you know, we celebrate the 4th of July because we look back at when we were delivered from our oppression. When we were delivered from the oppressive government of the British. And we look back at that day, how? With celebration, right? This is our national day of independence. This is the day that we celebrate. Well, if you think this is sort of how Israel looked back at the Exodus. See, this is what, this is what God is saying. God is saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. This, this is what they look back to with the same fondness as our founders look back to the day of our independence. They look back to it as a celebration. This is what we do on July 4th. We look to it and we celebrate. See, our national independence. This was the day. This was the time that Israel was liberated from the oppressor. They look back to it gratefully. You see, because they had experienced the grace and mercy and compassion of God. And that beloved becomes the motive. You see, for our obedience, gratitude for God's grace, that becomes the motive for our obedience. And so this is about what God said. This is about what God did. And this is about what God wants. And that brings us to the law itself. Beginning with verse 3, he says, you should have no other gods before me. You should not make for yourself an idol. In the form of anything and heaven above or on earth beneath. You should not misuse the name of the Lord. Remember the Sabbath day keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife for his man servant or maid servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Beloved, this is what God requires of his people. This is what pleases God. You know, more than anything else, people ask me, you know, how do I know what God wants? How do I know what the will of God is for my life? Well, folks, the answer is right here. This is what God wants. This is what pleases God. This is what God requires of us. Now, let's look specifically at the 10th commandment.
The 10th commandment says essentially that you shall not covet. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife and so on. Notice here that the negative is repeated twice. You shall not, you shall not. And we have pointed out before that these negatives are strong. These are strong negatives. This is a strong no. And a lot of times in ancient languages when something is repeated, it's done so for the purpose of emphasis. It's trying to say, don't do this. This is what you should not do. This is a strong no. Don't covet your neighbor's house. Don't covet your neighbor's wife and so on. It's a strong negative. And we've talked before about how we don't like negatives in our culture. And it's interesting, isn't it? That the main thing, you know, with respect to desire and our culture is not that we should say no to our desires, right? But that we should say, what? Yes to our desires. Yes to all of our desires. In fact, the only thing forbidden in our culture is to forbid. To forbid is the only thing forbidden. We say yes to everything with respect to our desires. As long as and here's the catchphrase that they always throw in just so you can know that these people have their morality too is what? As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. Say yes to your desires. As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.
You know, when I was a younger man and during the 1980s and Ronald Reagan was the president of the United States, his wife, Nancy, like all first ladies used to have, you know, their sort of issue that they represent to the public. Every first lady is in modern times and modern presidency has a particular cause or a particular issue that they sort of take on and they sort of try to raise the public's consciousness about a particular issue. And many of you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? What was Nancy Reagan's issue? She was trying to fight drug abuse, right? Especially amongst young people. She was trying to fight drug abuse. Do you remember what her slogan was for that campaign? Just say no. And, you know, I mean, it was a pretty slick campaign. And everywhere you look, you know, there were, there were, you know, community service announcements on TV that would say just say no. There were, you know, glossy magazine articles that would say just say no. Kids were given t-shirts and on these t-shirts, it would say just say no. Everywhere you look, you could find this, you know, the beauty of the campaign was its simplicity, right? It was a very simple campaign. Everybody could, you know, grasp it. Everybody could get their arms around it. Everybody could understand it. Everybody could participate. Just say no.
And then there was a strong negative. There's only one problem. It didn't work, did it. How many of you are among the people that said yes back then? No, just kidding. Don't raise your hands.
Don't self-incriminate yourselves here, okay? Your children are watching.
But a lot of us said yes, didn't we?
Because just saying no doesn't work, doesn't.
Not enough to just say no. These are strong negatives and they say no, but saying no isn't enough, is it? To the question becomes, and, you know, how is it that I'm able to obey the law that God has given us? How is it that I'm able to do what God wants to obey his righteous and holy requirements? How do I do that? You know, too often we get caught up in the wrong motivations for this stuff. They're not necessarily wrong in other selves. They're just inadequate. You know, so many times we approach the law with the idea that God's going to get me. You ever feel like that? God, if I do this, then God's going to get... Well, you know, part of that is true. God may get you. I don't know. It's possible. God might get you. The truth of the matter is that God's going to get you. God already has you, okay? That's the truth of the matter. He has you.
But we say, you know, some people try to obey the law by saying, you know, well, God's going to get me. That's how we deal with the know. That's how we deal with the negative. God's going to get me. Or another thing we do is we think, well, I might get caught. See? Well, that's true, too. You might get caught. All right? In fact, chances are you will get caught. Most everybody does get caught. All right? Have you been caught before? Don't answer that. I'm just... It's just a rhetorical question, okay? All right? You know, nine times out of 10, you get caught. I deal with this stuff every week, either in our church or people who got caught or in other churches with my Presbyteria responsibilities of people who got caught. Ministers who get caught, okay? But is that an effective means of responding to the structure? No. See, getting caught doesn't prevent the behavior. It doesn't. Thinking that God's going to get you or getting caught doesn't prevent... Well, maybe my friends or my family will find out. Yes, that's true, too. They might and they probably will. But that's insufficient. It's inadequate. How you look, this will make me look bad. Yes, true enough. You break God's laws. People find out there's a lot of shame involved and you'll probably look bad. But is that enough? You see? Was Nancy Reagan right? Can you just say no? And the answer is also negative. No, you can't. It doesn't just work. So then what do we do? Well, the answer I think is found in Titus. What does Titus say? Titus says that the grace of God has appeared to all men. And what does it do? Teaching us to do what? To say no. To ungodliness. You see the only effective means. All these other things may be true and to some degree they may be good.
The problem isn't whether they're good or not in another cells as a motive for obedience. The problem is whether or not they're adequate or not. And they're inadequate. It is only the grace of God that can empower you to say no both with your lips and with your lives.
And so that's the negative that we're dealing with and that's what Titus says that we are to do with it. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us to say no to ungodliness. Now the second thing I want you to look at here is the meaning of the word to covet. It's not a word we use very often today is it. It's a word that's kind of fallen into disuse. Simply put it's a word that just means desire. And it's a word that can be either good or bad. It refers to desires that are good and healthy. Even prescribed in Scripture. Or it can refer to desires that are evil and wicked.
You know when Calvin talked about this commandment he said that this commandment is like a mirror. He said actually all the commandments are like a mirror. That is that they show us who we are. But he says that all the other commandments function as a mirror that show us the outside of ourselves. Just like if people are, have you ever had the experience where you're standing before a group of people or you're at a restaurant or you're sitting across a table from someone and they start to giggle and laugh and you think they're laughing at you. You've ever had that experience right? And come to find out you've got something on your face so you're you know a little spot of food or dirt or on your shirt or something like that. And this is what you do you go and you look into what? You look into the mirror and then you see what everybody else was laughing at and you kind of and so you can clean yourself off. Well this is Calvin. This is how Calvin says the law works. The law is a mirror. It shows you how you are. But the difference is is that all the other you know the mirror that is all the other law than the 10th Commandment only shows us it works from the outside in. It shows us first what's on the outside and then we work backwards to what's on the inside. But this mirror Calvin calls the right mirror because what this mirror does is it shows us what's on the inside. It shows us how we really are and our soul and our spirits. And this is what happened to Paul. You know Paul's you know Paul was saying you know okay you know Dasha and that murder, lie, steal, commit adultery. I've done all that. See I'm not that bad of a person. I've kept the law but then Paul says except when I got to the 10th Commandment and it says you shall not covet then suddenly the law slew me then suddenly I realized I need a savior then suddenly I realize I can't do this that if I'm found guilty in one point along found guilty in the whole law. And that's the way that this 10th Commandment works. It is a mirror into our souls and it shows us what's on the inside. Now and then look at what it tells us that we should not covet when it says you should not covet your neighbor's house. Now if you come into my neighborhood I'll show you my house. Some of you have been to my neighborhood. You've been to my home but that's not what I'm talking about.
And if you come to my neighborhood and I show you my house what will be most surprising to you is that that's not where I live. I don't live in my house. See my house is about four blocks around the corner. You go into another subdivision and you drive around the circle. I've shown a few of my closest friends this house. See and my neighbor has a beautiful home there. It's gorgeous and the way the stone is on the front of this house is different than any other house in the neighborhood. It's the most tasteful, the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It's a big beautiful house. I don't live there. But you know what I call that house? I call that house my house. See when it says you shouldn't cover your neighbor's house a particular house comes to my mind. Does it come to your mind? Huh? I was talking to Chuck Michael something in email or something like that is an email last week. They said they were on Lake Michigan and you know his brother has a boat and they're out there touring around Lake Michigan. They were looking at all these multi multi-million dollar houses you know and he said the 10th commandment came right to his mind. Do you have a house like that? See and notice the personal problem is my house. What do I mean by that? It's the house that I want. Now most times I'm able to keep that in pretty good balance. But you know sometimes I wonder I have a nice house. Could be bigger you know. Could have a swimming pool. Could have some other things that I like you know some more office space or whatever. But you know I have a good house. I have a house that is not only adequate and sufficient for my needs. But I mean I have a house like probably you know very few people around the world when you consider us westerners to the rest of the world. Very few people around the world have a house like I have. When I go to Kenya and I go into some of the houses and these guys they're just they're just beaming with pride you know they want to show you where they live and they're just you know look at our house look at this you know and it's about the size of half of my garage. And there's five kids to live in there.
Don't cover your neighbor's house.
This is amazing you know particular house comes right to mind when I see that. Don't cover your neighbor's wife we've already talked about adultery earlier on so I'm not going to spend a lot of time there but I remember reading a story recently about a man who was in the ministry and he was he wasn't successful in the ministry. And he said you know if I had been married to Ruth Graham then my ministry would have been successful. Yeah but think about what would have happened to Ruth Graham.
You know I've seen so many times both in the church and in the ministry where both men and women are white have coveted somebody else's spouse. Men usually do it in such a way women do it in in a security way. They think if I was really married to that man see there's a man that really knows how to be a man. He knows how to take care of his family. He knows how to meet his wife's needs. See boy if I just had a man like that I would be in good shape.
See it's not really foreign to us isn't shouldn't covet your neighbor's house shouldn't cover your neighbor's wife shouldn't cover their ox or their donkey. Now I have to confess I have not covered anybody's ox or donkey.
Covered it a few cars in my day but never an ox or a donkey.
They're man servant they're made servant. See coveting people, coveting property.
Somebody asked John D. Rockefeller one time you know how much money does a man need? How much stuff does a man need before he can be truly happy, truly content and Rockefeller said just a little bit more than he has. It's like told story in his literary work called how much land is a man need and the answer was it's always more, more, faster, faster.
This one deals with us doesn't it? It's a mirror into our own heart and our own soul. And the scripture tells us, us Westerners who maybe are more guilty of coveting than any race of people and the history of humankind says you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his man servant or maid servant his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Let's pray. Father we are glad for your word the word of God which is living and powerful able to divide between the soul and the spirit the bone and the marrow the thoughts and the intense of our hearts. God we ask that you would allow your word to penetrate us to be that mirror that we reveal not only what's on the outside but what's on the inside that you would purify us of people that is pleasing to you we ask this in Jesus name.