The Ninth and Tenth Commandments.
Which is the Ninth Commandment?
_Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house._
What does this mean?
_We should fear and love God that we may not craftily seek to get our
neighbor's inheritance and house, nor obtain it by a show of right, but
help and be of service to him in keeping it._
Which is the Tenth Commandment?
_Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his
maid-servant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbors._
What does this mean?
_We should fear and love God that we may not estrange, force, or entice
away from our neighbor his wife, servants, or cattle, but urge them to
stay and do their duty._
1. In the Ninth and the Tenth Commandment God forbids the same. Both
commandments begin with the words: _"Thou shalt not covet."_ To covet
means eagerly and sinfully to desire and want what does not belong to
us, but to some one else, to our neighbor. We are covetous when we envy
our neighbor because of what he has, and want it for ourselves, and will
not be satisfied until we have obtained it for ourselves. Remember the
story of _King Ahab and Naboth._ Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, had a
strong desire for a certain vineyard which was the property of Naboth.
He offered to buy the vineyard, but Naboth did not want to sell it
because he had inherited it from his fathers. Ahab kept on longing for
the property of his neighbor and was not satisfied until Naboth was
stoned to death, and he was able to take possession of the vineyard.
1 Kings 21,1-16. Here we learn what it is to covet our neighbor's
property.
2. We are all, by nature, covetous. We all envy our neighbor and desire
to obtain what belongs to him. God forbids such evil desires. Already in
the Seventh Commandment we learned that our neighbor's property ought to
be sacred to us because God Himself gave it to him. God does not want us
even to covet it, to _desire_ to obtain it against the will of our
neighbor. We should, therefore, not _craftily,_ with cunning and fraud,
_seek to get our neighbor's inheritance,_ what he inherited from his
parents, or his _house,_ nor try _to obtain it by a show of right,_ in
such a way that it appears right before men while it is wrong in the
sight of God. We should not _force or entice away our neighbor's wife,
or servants, or cattle, or whatever belongs to him._
3. The property of our neighbor should be sacred to us. Because we love
him for God's sake, we should _help him and be of service to him in
keeping his property._ We should urge our _neighbor's wife or servants
to remain with him and do their duty towards him_ whenever we see that
they are seeking to leave him. God, our heavenly Father, tells us in His
Word: _"By love serve one another."_ Gal. 5,13. And furthermore He says:
_"Look not every man on his own things, but ever man also on the things
of others."_ Phil. 2,4.
4. God forbids us to covet our neighbor's property, all that belongs to
him. _Covetousness is a sin of the heart._ God teaches us a very
important lesson in these last two commandments. He teaches us that not
only our evil deeds nor only our evil words are sins against the holy
God, _but also our evil thoughts._ In the sight of God every desire for
anything that He has forbidden in His Word is evil, is a sin, even if
this sinful thought does not break out in evil words or deeds. Every
lust in itself is truly a sin which God has threatened to punish. _"Thou
shalt not covet,"_ is His demand. Every sinful thought, every impure
desire in our heart, proves that we do not fear and love our heavenly
Father as we should, that we have broken not only these two
commandments, but the first also, yea, all the commandments of our Lord.
5. God demands that our hearts be holy. There should be no evil lust, no
desire for any sin in our hearts, _but only a holy desire to serve our
God and Father. "Ye shall be holy [without any sin], for I, the Lord,
your God, am holy."_ Lev. 19,2. Our hearts should be so filled with fear
and love of God and all that is good in His eyes that no evil thought,
no sinful lust, can find room in them. _"Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."_ Matt. 5,48.
6. These last two commandments, even as the First Commandment,
especially teach us that we have not kept the commandments of our Lord,
and _that we cannot keep them perfectly._ Our hearts are full of lust
against the demands of God, full of evil thoughts. Our lust so often
entices and tempts us to sin by word and deed. We must confess that
_we all are sinners in the sight of God._ And "the wages of sin is
death." We are poor and lost sinners. Therefore _we daily pray for God's
forgiveness,_ we beg our heavenly Father to be gracious unto us for
Christ's sake, who has fulfilled the commandments of God in our stead
and borne our sins.