Shiloh Sunday Service (3rd December 2017)
Speaker: Missionary Joanna Pae
Sermon: "The 10th Commandment: You Shall Not Covet"
The Covenant for all generations
The Ten Commandments are the eternal covenant for all generations. That means that this covenant not only applies to the ancient Israelites but it applies to us exactly the same way today and for ever more. If we don’t understand the Ten Commandments we will not be able to understand the entire Bible.
Ten Commandments broken in the Garden
Adam and Eve broke the Ten Commandments while in the Garden of Eden. But how can this be when there were no Ten Commandments in the Garden of Eden? This teaches us that the Ten Commandments which is the covenant for all generations transcend all times and generations; even in the Garden of Eden.
Where do living beings live?
After God created Adam, He places him in the Eden. Therefore, when we believe in Jesus Christ we are given the power to become His children and living beings. God then takes the living being and brings him to the Garden of Eden to keep and cultivate Eden (Gen 2:15). In order to keep and cultivate Eden we first must know what Eden is. Eden means pleasure, delight, and satisfaction. However, Satan will present different forms of pleasure to compete with Eden to distract us. In Eden, both Adam and his wife Eve were naked but they were not ashamed. Thus, Eden is a place where there is no shame. Eden is not only a physical location but it represents our hearts and we must keep and cultivate it until we get to the Tree of Life. Therefore we must fight and defend Eden (our hearts) which flows the springs of life (Prov 4:23; 16:32). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is also in the midst of Eden and the warfare gets greater as we get closer to the center of Eden. Therefore in order to have victory, we must fight.
God’s Command to Adam
After God places Adam in Eden, the God of creation speaks to Adam for the very first time and commands; “Don’t eat from the TKGE” (Gen 2:17). This command is broken down into Ten Commandments. Eve fought the good fight and made it all the way to the center but ate from the TKGE. Adam and Eve who ate from the TKGE violated the Ten Commandments which mean if we understand the Ten Commandments and every pit fall that Adam and Eve had then we will not make the same mistake. This is why we have to study the Word of God. We cannot trust our hearts because they will lead us to the TKGE (Prov 28:26). True wisdom is the Word of God
You Shall Not Covet
To covet is the desire to have more than what one already has meaning; you have enough but you are not satisfied and you want more. It is not easy to guard our hearts (Eden) due to the temptations of covetousness. The Tenth Commandment explains what this greed is and there are two types of greed. The Ten Commandments are proclaimed in two places in the Bible. First, on top of Mt. Sinai (Exo 20) and secondly, in the Plains of Moab after the 40 years of wilderness journey (Deut 5). In Ex 20:17, Covet in Hebrew is “chamad” meaning to stimuli or to provoke; thus something outside of us that urges us to want to have more. However, in (Deut 5), Moses discovers that covetousness or greed does not only come from external factors or stimuli but from within our hearts. Therefore the word “covet” in (Deut 5) is “avah” meaning internal stimuli in which the heart is inclined or leaning towards something more than Eden and the Tree of Life. Both “chamad” and “avah” are written in the imperfect tense meaning something that took place in the past that continues to happen over and over again in which God is reminding us that our covetousness nature will occur over and over again (James 1:14-15). However, we need to cast out the thought of covetousness with the Word of God.
Conclusion: The Tenth Command is the conclusion of all things. The Apostle Paul says not keeping the Tenth Commandment is the equivalent to worshiping idols which violates the first and second commandment. Greed is unbelief which is wanting more than what we already have (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5). A rich young man came all the way to where the Tree of Life stood which is Jesus Christ but went away grieved because he was so rich (Matt 19:16-22). Although he had kept the commandments of God he was unable to eat from the Tree of Life because of greed (Mark 4:18-19). Greed is distrusting our Father God. The man of God David trusted in God and confessed that; “I shall not want” (Psa 23:1). Therefore when greed comes in we must act fast to give thanks.
