The Danger of CovetousnessRead Ezekiel 33:30-33
And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness" (v. 31).
Covetousness might be called "the sin that is most ignored." The tenth commandment is the one that is normally skipped in discussions. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said of the thousands he had seen saved, he never heard someone say they were saved from the sin of covetousness. LaSalle was a famous priest of the Middle Ages, and he said this sin was never confessed to him.
There is an old Jewish saying that we are born into this world with hands grasping after everything we can obtain, but when we die our hands are wide open and nothing in them. This is the problem of covetousness.
A story is told of a peasant who murmured to a giant landholder of the unfairness of it all. Knowing the nature of men, the landholder promised to give the peasant all the land he could walk around in a whole day. The peasant, greedily trying to take in all the area possible, overexerted himself and dropped with a heart attack and died. He ended up with nothing.
Covetousness is a debasing sin - it will turn you into less than you can be (1 Timothy 6:9-10). It is a deceiving sin - usually the covetous person does not recognize the problem (1 Thessalonians 2:5). It is a damning sin - one to take seriously (Ephesians 5:5). (L. Gayle Woods)
Do not ignore this sin; with God's grace, overcome it.
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