1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,880 Here we are in the 10 of God's 10 Rules for Living. 2 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:20,340 In other words, we are in this series of messages of the Ten Commandments, and this is the tenth 3 00:00:20,340 --> 00:00:26,920 commandment, thou shalt not covet. 4 00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:31,520 Know that you who have been following me in these heart-to-heart talks regarding God's 5 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:40,280 10 Rules for Living, know that we have come through nine of the rules. 6 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:49,960 And of these nine, the first four deal with man's relationship with God, and the last 7 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:57,920 six deal with man's relationship with man. 8 00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:11,000 I left you discussing the ninth commandment when we saw that one's reputation is something 9 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,640 that's so precious. 10 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:21,720 It has such great value that God literally made a rule, he gave a commandment to safeguard, 11 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:28,920 to protect your reputation, my reputation. 12 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:39,240 Now we come to this tenth of God's 10 Rules for Man. 13 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:46,960 This tenth is something that is vitally important. 14 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:53,560 Let me read if you will please this tenth commandment. 15 00:01:53,560 --> 00:02:02,440 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, 16 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:12,200 nor his man's servant, nor his maid's servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that 17 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:16,360 is thy neighbor's. 18 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:24,640 And this final word, the word that I have just read to you from God's precious word, 19 00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:33,240 utters its solemn warning against sin that is in the inner and the hidden life. 20 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:40,720 And this commandment, this the last of God's 10 Rules for Living, may be broken without 21 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:45,600 the knowledge of any human being. 22 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:48,560 And it's just like that. 23 00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:54,560 Let me pause and discuss something with you for just one minute before we go in to this 24 00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:59,120 tenth commandment. 25 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:03,920 There are three persons in each of us. 26 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:07,320 There's the person that the man on the street knows. 27 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:11,320 There's the person your neighbor knows, the outward you. 28 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:15,400 I walk down the street and somebody says, there goes Catherine Kuhlman. 29 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:17,160 That's one person. 30 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:19,280 The person the public knows. 31 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:23,680 The one who sits in the audience, I'm on the platform. 32 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:25,680 That is Catherine Kuhlman. 33 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:37,680 And yet, not one of those folk who have said, there goes Catherine Kuhlman, knows the person 34 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:45,720 that that one who has been intimately associated with me knows. 35 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:53,280 I still contend that Eve knew a different person than anyone else in the whole world 36 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:54,280 knows. 37 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,440 It's like that. 38 00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:00,280 Because she was with me constantly. 39 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:03,660 She saw me in my bad moments. 40 00:04:03,660 --> 00:04:07,280 She knew all the bad about me. 41 00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:09,200 Love me just the same. 42 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:15,520 She saw me when we say, you know, we have our hair down. 43 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,640 Be perfectly natural. 44 00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:21,600 Oh, sure. 45 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:29,000 When well, there were times when you wouldn't think of having anyone else see that side 46 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:30,360 of you. 47 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:35,760 You just became absolutely human. 48 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:37,520 Sure. 49 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:45,000 Eve knew a far different person than probably someone else who says, there goes Catherine 50 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,960 Kuhlman, knows. 51 00:04:48,960 --> 00:05:00,880 Then my friend, there is a person that I know that Eve lived and went home to glory. 52 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:03,480 Never really knew. 53 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:07,720 I had an older sister who swears she knows me. 54 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:10,120 Oh, sure. 55 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:18,040 Kuhl worked with me every day in the office and we have such close contact and yet I know 56 00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:20,480 something. 57 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:28,320 I know that I know a different person than they know. 58 00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:34,760 And there have been many a time when I wish that I could, I wish it was in my power to 59 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:40,400 actually take the lid off of my heart and sometimes let those that you think so much 60 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:52,360 of really see on the inside of you, let them really know you as you really are because 61 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:56,880 you cannot express it in audible words. 62 00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:11,720 Now, there is a me that I do not even know, a person in me that only God knows. 63 00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:17,120 And that's the person that's going to be judged one of these days. 64 00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:21,560 God knows me better than I know myself. 65 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:24,760 I'm sure that he does. 66 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:29,520 Because more than once in my lifetime I have stood before a mirror, looked at myself, and 67 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:38,920 I've almost found myself to be a stranger to myself. 68 00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:49,320 There is a person that I do not know even though I am that person. 69 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:55,400 And that's the person that God knows and that's the person that when we stand in his 70 00:06:55,400 --> 00:07:01,640 wonderful presence, when we stand at the great judgment seat of Almighty God, that's the 71 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:05,440 person that's going to be judged. 72 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:09,280 We do things and we do not know why we do them. 73 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:13,720 Yet God who has perfect knowledge knows why. 74 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,040 Because he knows a different side of us. 75 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:19,680 He knows us as a different person than we know ourselves. 76 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:22,720 Do you see what I'm trying to say? 77 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:29,440 It looks kind of complicated but it's so simple and it's just like that. 78 00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:35,640 Therefore, when he comes to this very last of his rules for living, he comes to the last 79 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:52,120 of the Ten Commandments, he is talking about that person that only I know, the person that 80 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:59,640 he knows, and the sin that he's talking about is a sin that can be committed without the 81 00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:03,200 knowledge of any human being. 82 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:10,320 This commandment may literally be broken without the knowledge of any human being, without 83 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:14,760 the knowledge of your husband, without the knowledge of your neighbor. 84 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:21,400 Sometimes I think that it's possible for you and for me to break this commandment and we're 85 00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:26,120 not conscious of the fact that we're breaking it ourselves. 86 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:31,240 This thing of covetousness. 87 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,120 Here it is. 88 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:40,240 Let's pause a minute and let us consider the command. 89 00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:46,600 Thou shalt not covet. 90 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:54,640 Now in examining the commandment, it is well to notice carefully the word which is made 91 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:58,960 use of to mark the sin itself. 92 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:08,600 The actual word, covet, in its original meaning, implies delight in some object. 93 00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:14,400 And because delight in anything necessarily means a sense of desire to possess, the word 94 00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:25,320 was used to mark that desire to possess more than the delight which prompted the desire. 95 00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:27,760 Let me pause and make something very clear to you right now. 96 00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:33,280 It is no sin to desire. 97 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:38,800 I want to get to the full depth of meaning of this last of the Ten Commandments because 98 00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:43,880 I believe that we have a wrong conception of what God really meant when he gave this 99 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:46,920 commandment. 100 00:09:46,920 --> 00:09:52,360 Some of these things have been so misconstrued, so misunderstood. 101 00:09:52,360 --> 00:10:01,400 It's so hard sometimes for the natural mind to comprehend the true meaning of some of 102 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:05,600 these things that God has given us and that are so important. 103 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:09,080 Know remember something. 104 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:13,520 To desire is not wrong. 105 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:20,400 Without desires, no one would have any ambition, would not work, we would not make progress. 106 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:29,560 My goodness of life, I can't remember the time in my life when I didn't desire to obtain, 107 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:31,880 desire to be something. 108 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:41,160 It's been a force that has actually pushed me out into larger fields. 109 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:45,220 I can't, I mean that with all my heart. 110 00:10:45,220 --> 00:10:52,960 Even as a kid on the streets of Concordia, Missouri, even as a child before I went to 111 00:10:52,960 --> 00:11:10,360 school, I still remember having desires of ambition, desire to work, to do things. 112 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:17,480 Remember, to desire is not wrong. 113 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:22,120 There must be desire if one is to have ambition. 114 00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:34,360 Therefore, I know that this word covet means something more than just desiring. 115 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:46,920 It depends my friend on how you desire to possess and for what purpose you desire to 116 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:47,920 possess. 117 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:51,720 And it's just like that. 118 00:11:51,720 --> 00:12:00,160 Therefore I repeat, the actual word covet in its original meaning implies delight in 119 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:08,240 some object and because delight in anything, regardless of what it is, necessarily means 120 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:10,600 a sense of desire to possess. 121 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:23,640 The word was used to mark that desire to possess more than the delight which prompted the desire. 122 00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:31,160 In the repetition of the commandment, in the book of Deuteronomy, read it, it's verse 21, 123 00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:33,360 two words are used. 124 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:40,440 The first word translated, covet, in revised, is the same as that already referred to in 125 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:42,080 Exodus. 126 00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:51,480 The second word translated, desire, is a word meaning simply to wish for. 127 00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:57,720 The apostle Paul in quoting the commandment uses a Greek word which in its different forms 128 00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:03,600 in the New Testament is most frequently translated lust. 129 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:09,080 It is often rendered desire, sometimes covet. 130 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:15,920 Now I'm giving you this explanation because these translations will help to throw light 131 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:18,080 upon the word. 132 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:31,760 The sensual meaning is to set the heart on, very literally to pant after, to pant after, 133 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:35,280 to set the heart upon. 134 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:43,400 The sin therefore suggested by the word is very evidently that of desire to possess something 135 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:48,400 which belongs to someone else. 136 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:52,280 Notice the sequence suggested by the very word itself. 137 00:13:52,280 --> 00:14:01,080 The eyes rest upon some object which commands the admiration of the beholder, something 138 00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:05,600 which is to that person delightful and to be desired. 139 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:12,000 To desire to possess that object is to covet. 140 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:18,840 There is of course an unnamed quanta te in the circumstance addressed, something which 141 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:25,800 is not wrong but out of which wrong may spring. 142 00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:32,920 Now let me just give you by way of illustration something very homely. 143 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:39,840 Say for instance your neighbor has a beautiful oil painting. 144 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:43,680 It's a masterpiece. 145 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:53,360 You are a visitor in your neighbor's home and as you gaze upon that oil painting you 146 00:14:53,360 --> 00:15:02,600 desire it because you love it in the sense that it brings you happiness. 147 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:05,320 You see the beauty in it. 148 00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:15,560 How often I have gazed upon a painting and I have said audibly, it speaks to my soul. 149 00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:21,040 I have a painting of a baby in my office. 150 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:22,880 It gives atmosphere. 151 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:27,080 It gives peace. 152 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:30,920 It does something to my nerves. 153 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:34,120 Just that relaxed baby. 154 00:15:34,120 --> 00:15:36,240 I love it. 155 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:38,960 You behold a painting. 156 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:46,040 You desire it because you appreciate it. 157 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:53,600 To desire it because of your appreciation and because of what it does to you is not to 158 00:15:53,600 --> 00:16:00,320 covet that thing in the light that Jesus is talking about. 159 00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:11,160 You may go out, work, purchase a picture identical with that same picture, put it in your own 160 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:21,440 home, not because you had done it out of malice because you had been jealous of the picture 161 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:28,920 that your neighbor had on the wall, but you put the picture that you have purchased on 162 00:16:28,920 --> 00:16:33,080 the wall of your own home. 163 00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:39,360 It continues to bring happiness to you because of its beauty. 164 00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:45,080 It is there not because you were jealous that your neighbor next door had one like 165 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:52,640 it and you were going to get it if it killed you, if you had to pay the last dime you 166 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:53,640 owned. 167 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:58,600 By hook or by cook, you were not going to let your neighbor get ahead of you. 168 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:04,080 You were determined that if she could have one, you could have one. 169 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:08,480 One is sin. 170 00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:20,720 Both are desire, but in one case the desire is sin because of the jealousy that was in 171 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:23,320 your heart. 172 00:17:23,320 --> 00:17:31,440 The other was desire because of the beauty that was in it. 173 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:34,160 Don't you understand? 174 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:42,400 In exactly the same way, to have money, my friend, you can search the Bible. 175 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:54,040 You cannot find in the Word of God where it is a sin for a man to be rich. 176 00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:58,960 Sometimes we get the idea, you know, and I've even heard small preachers preach on it, that 177 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:03,440 it's a sin to be rich. 178 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:10,880 That you couldn't possibly be a wealthy person and be a Christian, my friend. 179 00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:14,600 The very person who is preaching against riches. 180 00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:21,840 God knows he could not trust that one with riches. 181 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:31,400 His soul would be damned because he would make that money his God. 182 00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:39,760 It's the love of money that is the root of all evil. 183 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:47,160 That's right, the love of the faith. 184 00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:59,800 There is, my friend, a place where no matter how much some people get, they are always 185 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:02,800 discontented. 186 00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:06,880 It's like that. 187 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:13,060 This word covet here in the Word of God means grasping for more. 188 00:19:13,060 --> 00:19:20,240 No matter how much one gets, he's always discontented and eventually, after covetousness drives 189 00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:32,400 him unmercifully through life, it kills him and leaves him with nothing. 190 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:42,800 There are folk that it would make no difference whether they made $10 a week, $50 a week, 191 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,680 $1,000 a month. 192 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:51,440 They would never be happy. 193 00:19:51,440 --> 00:20:02,280 The greed in their heart for more and more and still more, the covetousness in their 194 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:21,000 heart would keep them continually discontented and eventually kill their body and their spirituality. 195 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:22,760 Amen.