Covetousness - One of Those Respectable Sins

Well, you can open your Bibles again. Our ongoing study of Ephesians. We're in chapter 5. We're actually going to be looking at the same four verses that we looked at last week, only we're going to draw on something that we did not draw on last week. We're going to begin reading in v. 3, but before we do that, let's pray once again. Oh, Father, as we think about beholding Him, coming, shining like the sun, we think of how the Scripture ends. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Hastening the coming day. A new heavens and a new earth. Lord, so many in this room have been saved to no longer be people of this world, bound by the things of this world. You've set us free and You've given us life indeed. Lord, I pray that the Word of God would wash Your people these next few minutes. I do want to pray for my dear wife. Lord, I pray that You would restore health to her, give her grace, help her. Lord, I pray You'd heal her. Lord, excite us and thrill us with Your Word. We ask for that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Well, let's read. Verse 3, But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper, as is fitting. The King James Version says, as becometh saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place. They're not suitable. They're out of character. They're not comely for the saint. But instead, let there be thanksgiving, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words because of these things. The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Now, I mentioned last week that I wasn't going to deal with covetousness then. I wanted to deal with it today. Some of the folks, I know my daughters have been involved in this, they have a Bible study, I believe at Travis Johnson's home. They're studying Jerry Bridges' book, Respectable Sins. You ever heard of that book? It's an intriguing title. It wasn't a book that I had in my library. Respectable Sins. There are respectable sins. There are those sins that get tolerated. They're the more refined sins, the subtle sins. They're the ones we tend to overlook. I've called my sermon, my sermon title, One of Those Respectable Sins. Of course, I'm talking about covetousness. Maybe you remember, I saw a good illusion in King Agag. Do you remember who King Agag was? He was the Amalekite king at such time when God told Saul, go wipe the Amalekites out. Just as Saul spared Agag, so it is with respectable sins. They get spared. But what I really want to do today is cut to the chase. We have no warrant at all to deal leniently with any sin. Subtle sins are sins still. Sins separate us from God. Sins cause Christ to have to go to the cross. Sins, it was a sin of covetousness that ran man out of the garden. It doesn't matter what sort of clothing that sin might be wearing. You know what our mandate is? It is to hack Agag to pieces. John MacArthur actually has a sermon entitled that. I just remembered. I think he was dealing with sin in general. Just look at the text. What do we have here? Sexual immorality. All impurity. That stuff isn't proper for saints. Filthiness. It's out of place. Sexually immoral. The impure. You know what? No inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God. This is the in-your-face kind of graphic sin. It's dirty. It's obvious. And for such kinds of sins and sinners, the wrath of God is coming. You know what happens? We bring forth a disciplinary situation, the church generally doesn't have any problem. If I stand up here and I say, well, brethren, there was this brother, this sister, they've been among us for a long time and they've been visiting prostitutes or they fell into sin. You know what? Few are going to question that kind of disciplinary action. But we're not talking about pornography, sexual immorality, adultery, filthiness, impurity. You know what we're talking about today? Covetousness. That's what we're dealing with. And you know what I want to do? I want to read these four verses taking all the sexual impurities and sexual immoralities and all that, all the filthiness, I want to take it out. I'm going to read these four verses with just covetousness in here. Listen to how it sounds. But covetousness must not even be named among you. Wow! You know, we can isolate the others. The in-your-face kind of stuff. Covetousness, it must not even be named among you as is proper, as becometh saints. You may be sure of this, that everyone who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of this thing, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. So there's Agag. God had said about the Amalekites, don't spare them. Kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox, sheep, camel, donkey, but King Agag gets spared. Why? He's a trophy. He's the king. Look at it. He's got his royal garment on. He looks good. He looks respectable. He doesn't look so dangerous. He's rather appealing in his kingly garments. He's tolerated. He's not killed. He's spared. We can hardly figure out how he actually gets included with such scoundrels and rogues and villains like those we find in v. 3 and 4. Seriously? Seriously? He's categorized with sexual immorality? He seems respectable. Not hardly a cause for the wrath of God at all. But you know what? The Apostle says otherwise. Covetous may appear respectable enough. And we may even try calling it by other names. Oh, well, they're prudent. They're thrifty. They're frugal. They're shrewd. They're economical. They're bargain hunters. You can be sure of this. No matter what name you disguise it with, let no one deceive you. Because of covetousness, the wrath of God is coming. And it's not even supposed to be named among God's people. You know the problem with covetousness? It seems to breed an insensibility in the people that have it. It causes a blindness of mind. Listen to this. Spurgeon. I found this quote from him concerning covetousness. He says this, St. Francis de Sales, an eminent confessor. In other words, this guy's Roman Catholic. He's an eminent character for people coming to him and confessing sin. In the Romanist church, Catholicism, this guy had people confessing sin to him all the time. Listen to what Spurgeon says. St. Francis de Sales, an eminent confessor to whom persons went in the Romanist church to confess their sins, found that persons confessed to him in private all sorts of horrible sins such as adultery, drunkenness, and murder, but never, not even once, did he ever have one person confess the sin of covetousness. Now, you know what Spurgeon did? Spurgeon took that story from somebody back in history, this de Sales guy, and Spurgeon took that story and he took it and used it on a man who he believed to be the most covetous person he had ever met. So Spurgeon's talking to this guy. Spurgeon says to this man this story. He wanted him to consider that in the whole life of Francis de Sales, nobody had ever admitted covetousness. And you know what? Spurgeon asked the man how he thought that could be, that a confessor like this never had one person confess covetousness. The man replied by saying, I suppose it's because the sin is so extremely rare. Blind soul, Spurgeon says. Spurgeon responded to that man by saying that he feared the sin was so very common that people didn't know when they were covetous. And that the man who was most covetous of all was the last person to suspect himself of it. I am a big fan of Bunyan. Behind Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, probably one of the most famous things, was another allegory that he wrote. It's the Holy War. And you remember, Holy War is basically this allegory that's written to portray man and how the devil comes in and deceives. Man is actually the town of man's soul. Bunyan characterizes all the goings on in man by the analogy of a town of man's soul. And you have Diabolus, obviously the devil. And then Christ comes. And you see this whole thing play out. In Bunyan's Holy War, Diabolus sends these traitors to the city of man's soul. And one of the young men that he sent there was a young man by the name of Covetousness. But you know, when he entered the town, he didn't go by that name. He went by the name Mr. Prudent Thrifty. Brethren, I'll tell you this, we need to open the eyes and our heads if we're going to find this sin out. And I'm going to let the Lord Jesus help us here. I have a couple favorite passages when it comes to covetousness. And here's one of them. Let's turn in our Bibles to Luke 12. Because what we really want to do is we want to find this sin out. We want to try to identify it. What's its nature? How do we recognize it? I mean, look, the Apostle is threatening people with not inheriting the Kingdom. And I'll tell you, if you have eyes to see it, it's the very makeup of what John references when he says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. And he talks about the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eye, the pride of life. Those things are not of the Father. And they don't correspond with a love for the Father. But here, notice this. Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you? And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. Now look, one of the things you all have to recognize, the guys that preach, you really have to preach these things to yourself before you stand up in the pulpit. You've got an open Bible. You're going through this. This isn't just a mindless study. And it's not detached from our person. As we go through this, we have to be tested by the Word of God. I mean, if the very nature of covetousness is it tends to obscure itself, it tends to blind the people that have it. Spurgeon's right that the people that are most covetous are probably the last to recognize it. I sat in my office really thinking, I wanted to be tested by these things. I want you to be tested by these. This takes asking yourself some deep questions. Look what the Lord says here. Take care. Be on your guard. Wow! You know what? That lends itself to exactly what Spurgeon's saying. You better watch out. This lends itself to what the Apostle is saying. That you don't inherit the kingdom because of this thing, the wrath of God is coming. This is something you better watch out for. This is something you better be on guard against. All covetousness. And you know what's great about this? This is a real life situation that helps us lock in on the meaning and the nature of this sin. What an example! An inheritance. You know what? You can read about that and be detached, but I'll guarantee you this. If your parents die and you have brothers or sisters and you're in the middle of that thing, oh, that's a whole other story. You want to talk about something that will test a person? Inheritances. Anything in life to test a man's covetousness. I remember a brother down at Community Baptist Church. I forget which parent died last, if it was his dad or his mom. I forget that part of the story. But his last remaining parent died. And he told me, he drove to his parent's house and guess what he sees when he shows up? The house is now empty of his parents. The last one just died, like maybe a day or two or three before. He drives up. He sees his sister's husband, his brother-in-law, truck backed up to the house hauling the tools out, hauling the welder out. How did this brother respond? You think that tested? Those are his own father's tools. The brother-in-law's hauling them away. Strike a nerve with anyone? We don't have much detail in Luke 12. We don't know how one brother came to possess all the inheritance. Maybe there was no will. I don't know. Maybe the one was an older brother. You know what? Obviously, it doesn't matter. Or we'd be given those details. What does matter is Agag's here and Jesus says, you better be on guard. It's a compound word in the Greek. Covetousness. Pleion plus echo. It's pleionexia. And if you break up the compound, the first part means more. The last part means have. Basically, you want to know literally what the word means? Have more. That's the idea. The lexicons, if you look at those, you look for synonyms or for definition, this word is often translated a love of money or greedy. Those are good synonyms. Strong desire for more irrespective of your need. A grasping, a grasping ambition. An insatiableness. Now, here's the thing. We can all identify with this guy maybe and say, hey, might it be right for the brother with the inheritance to have divided it with his brother? Maybe. Certainly, the man speaking to the Lord, the man that comes out of the crowd, he certainly thinks that if justice is served, he ought to be getting part of it. And Jesus, after all, he's a man that spake like no one else ever spake and he's a man that obviously is wise. This man obviously believed that Jesus was going to side with him if he knew all the facts. Did he have a legitimate case? You know what? The reality is none of that matters. There was cancer here. That thing that brings the wrath of God and our Lord cares little about any improper distribution of an inheritance. He's really not concerned with that. He's not concerned if injustice has been done to this guy. What he recognizes is there's a cancer in this guy and that's bad. And you know what he does then? He goes on to tell a parable. Now let's look at this parable. Verse 16, he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself... and you might just notice all the personal pronouns. He thought to himself. What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. He said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up. You just get this. Many years relax, eat, drink, be merry. God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself is not rich toward God. Now you know what strikes me most about this parable? Is that at first glance, this parable doesn't seem to rightly capture the case at hand. I mean, think about it. The man from the crowd wants part of an inheritance that he does not yet possess. Right? The man in the parable is not like that man. The man in the parable already has more than he knows what to do with. I mean, this seems almost misapplied. Couldn't our Lord have created a parable that more closely resembled the man He's dealing with? Certainly He could have. He could have. If that was His primary purpose. But it wasn't. He's after the root issue with covetousness. Notice the last thing said in verse 15. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And you see, that right there is the issue. That's what the parable is all about. That's what it's meant to teach. Covetousness is the desire to have. It's a desire fed by the belief that my life consists in what I have. My life isn't going to be right unless I have a certain thing. I'm not living. It's not really life. I'm not really living unless I have that. It's that void. What's the void in your life? The thing that there's this emptiness there. I've got to have that. You keep feeling like, well, if I'm really going to be happy in this world, I have to have that thing. You see, that's what's happening here. The man in the parable. What was it he wanted? Many years of relaxing, eating, drinking, being merry. I will, I will, I will. He laid up treasures for himself. The man who wants the inheritance, he has the same mindset. What's the mindset? That that inheritance was crucial to his life. His happiness hung on it. You see, the man who has a bunch, even more than he knows what to do with, his happiness, he's got it all calculated. His happiness rests on what he has. This man who doesn't have, he's got the same mindset. He's thinking his life isn't going to be right as long as his brother's running around. This isn't fair. His brother's got all the cash. He's got all the goods. He's got all the possessions. He's got all the cattle, all the crops, all the land. He's got all this. And I don't have it. And so of all the questions that he could bring to the Lord, this is the thing festering in him. Lord, make my brother set that right. His happiness hung on it. And you see, it doesn't matter if you don't have the inheritance and want it or you already have more than you know what to do with. Covetousness is a lust of the heart that stems from a worldview that a person's life can be measured by what he has. And see, that's where we have to stop and think, every one of us. What is it that we... And you know, there are some things that you ought not to be content with. There are some things that you ought not to be settled with and satisfied with. You ought to want more of the Lord. You ought to want more holiness. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about stuff. What defines your life? You know, you're going along and you're thinking, you know, my life is pretty good right now, but it would really be complete if I had fill in the blank. I mean, what is it? A woman? A man? A home? A car? Shoes? Gun? Mower? Job? Ministry? Popularity? Success? Fame? A trip somewhere? Some title? Good health? Right status? Certain rank? Education? Learning? Knowledge? You see, covetousness is that mindset that my life is not right. It's not whole. I'm not satisfied unless and until I get that thing. It's a person who isn't happy and imagines that he never can be truly happy until he gets that thing. And yet, what I find most interesting is what's said a little further down. Notice if you drop down in Luke 12 and you get down to v. 33. Sell your possessions. Here's a man that wants possessions. He wants part. He doesn't say how much. His brother's got it all. He wants some of it. He wants a piece of the pie. Probably he's thinking 50% would be fair. And Jesus flips this thing right around. Instead of thinking about all the possessions you should be getting and that your life is incomplete with that, maybe you ought to see that your life is incomplete until you start actually selling your possessions. You say incomplete? Well, yeah, because obviously He's saying that you sell your possessions to get some money bags here that you obviously would not have if you didn't sell the possession that you have. Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, no moth destroys. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Stay dressed for action. You know, when you hear this kind of thing, stay dressed for action, what does that mean? Be ready for when the Lord comes? How? By having a proper mindset when it comes to stuff here? That's what's on the table here. When He talks about a man being dressed or a woman being dressed for action, keep your lamps burning, be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. You see, you don't go and open that door at once when he comes and knocks. If you've got all this stuff over here that your life is invested in that you think you have to have to be happy. It's like, no, I don't want Him to come. My life is too tied up in my family, my kids, my yard, my house, my car. It's all tied up in these things. No, Lord, don't come. I'm not ready for You to come yet. We've got this thing going on this week and all this stuff and I haven't done this yet. I haven't got to take that trip over there yet. Don't come now. You see, the person that's ready, you start selling everything and then your eyes are there. You're very much ready for Him to come. You're not holding on to stuff here. Covetousness. It's this mindset. You know what's interesting about all this? Our Lord doesn't say it's wrong to eagerly and aggressively desire and go after money bags. Wanting these money bags is not wrong. Coveting them is not wrong. But even here, beware. I'm thinking about James talking about false prophets. You get these guys and they talk about heaven. They talk about the mansions and the streets of gold and they talk all this. You remember what Paul says. Covetousness, which is idolatry. What's the treasure? What are the money bags that you hope for there? Scripture's not real plain in describing what these things are. But you think with me here. The Lord says to Abraham, I am thy shield and exceeding great reward. David says, the Lord is my portion. If you start thinking about money bags and treasures separate from the treasures of Christ, people can have just as much a worldly mindset and worldly desires concerning heaven. This brings me to the last verse that I want to look at. Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13:5 Brethren, I want to tell you something about this verse. Keep your life free from the love of money. Different translations say, be without covetousness. That's our word here. Keep your life free from covetousness. Be content with what you have, for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Brethren, in 1999, a little over 20 years ago, my dad died. It was in October. I remember that fall. My brother lived up in Michigan where my dad lived. They lived next door to each other. My brother had bought my grandmother's house. My dad lived next door. My dad had terminal cancer. They had a hospital bed brought in to my brother's front room. My brother was there. I was down here. It made total sense for my dad to make my brother the executor of the estate. Gave him power of attorney. Now, I was just talking to my brother one day. I'm not even really certain where this came from. I wasn't arguing with him about what I get and what he gets. And my brother just threw out there that he spoke with an attorney and the attorney had told him that because he was the executor, he could keep everything legally. And whatever. Just prior to that, before my dad died, my dad had told me sometime before that, my dad had told me that something that he had told me years before that he was going to give me when he died, he told me my brother had already taken it. And so this morning, I'm getting ready to get on an airplane and fly up to Michigan. And I know that my brother is going to divide these things and he's already taken stuff and he's made statements like that. And I sat down at my desk and I opened up my Bible and there was this temptation to let that affect me. And do you know, I am quite certain my dad could not die until it came to my Bible reading being in Hebrews 13. Because that morning before I got on that plane, my dad had asked me to preach his funeral. I was in Hebrews 13. And I came across this passage and I am telling you, something absolutely supernatural happened. As I read this, I mean, I was just overwhelmed by that reality. I have the Lord. The Lord is mine. The Lord has forgiven me. The Lord has taken me to be one of His sons. I have Him. It's like I'm going up to Michigan as a multi-trillionaire. And am I going to squabble? I was so at rest and so at peace. Really, I have been ever since. It's just, what a promise. The author of Hebrews gives us the real cure for covetousness. Do you know what it is? Contentment. You see it in the text? Be content. Brethren, no matter how covetousness might disguise itself, here's the test for finding it out. Most men imagine that they would be content if they were just not exactly what they are or where they are. They imagine themselves content when they just get that one thing or that second thing. In fact, you know, I've thought about it. Idolatry. I really suspect that many men miss heaven, many women miss heaven because of one or two things that they loved too much to let go of. Unless you forsake all that you have, you can't be My disciple. And you see the rich young ruler. Christ. My stuff. Fatal decision. It can be a car. It can be a husband. It often has to do with the circumstances associated with trials in our lives. Circumstances. We're faced with difficulties that we can't escape. We can't do anything to get out of these trials that we're faced with. We can do nothing about them. It's beyond our control. We can't manipulate the thing. You know what happens? That causes discontent. And we're going to be tried here all the time because you know what life brings. Things are going to happen. You're going to be faced with difficult situations that you do not want to be in. You're going to get thorns in the flesh that you do not want poking you. And you're going to ask the Lord to take them away and the Lord doesn't take them away. And right there, your contentment is going to be challenged. That's what happens. That causes discontent. We want things to be different. We covet a different state of affairs. We're faced by certain circumstances that are a trial to our faith. They test us. Whether they have to do with a job or with our marriage, our children, our health. And you know what happens. To compound the possibility of discontent is we look at other people and they're not going through that. Lord, why me? Why isn't my child? Why isn't my job? Why isn't my marriage? Why is this happening to me? And you know what the reality is? We can become so used to responding to such things with anxiety, frustration, discontent, complaint, murmuring, that you know what? We simply consider these things to be normal reactions. We allow them. And Agag's spared. And there he stands. We're so used to having Agag around. And you know what happens? We respond no differently than those Gentiles we were told back there in 417 that we must no longer walk like. Because how do Gentiles respond to life? Not with God in the equation. And you see what the author of Hebrews is doing. You've got to have God in that equation if you're ever going to be content. I'll tell you, I often think I don't know what people who don't know the Lord do as they go through life and they move towards old age and the things that happen to people if you don't have the Lord to call on and rest on and cry out to. And with that hope before you. It's like as you get older and older, things just become hopeless if you don't have the Lord. Would you be taught to shun covetousness? Well, then you know what you do. You cultivate the virtue of contentment. What do you put off? Covetousness. What do you put on? Contentment. Look, I'm fairly certain that if you go over to James Jennings' house and you look at his front yard, I would challenge you to find a weed there. I've heard that radio guy. I go to get the mail on Saturdays. I listen to Bob Webster sometimes. And he said if you grow St. Augustine grass, it will crowd every other thing out. This is really the way. You don't want to just try to put off covetousness. You need to seek to put on contentment. It will be like James' grass. It will just crowd everything out. I can guarantee you that James' front yard is not an inviting place for weeds to grow. It chokes out every single invader that comes. But how can I be content when I'm not? Renew your mind. Never miss and forget 423. We need to renew the spirit of our minds. Do you need some biblical truth to wash your brain with? I'm going to give you some. You need something designed to induce contentment? Here it is. Hebrews 13:5 For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That has quotation marks around it. I recognize they're not in the original Greek, but they are definitely here in our English translations for good reason. Because we should ask ourselves, where has that been said? Where is this quoted from? Well, we could go numerous places, but just listen to this. To Jacob at Bethel. There's Bethel again. Genesis 28:15 Remember where the ladder reached to the heavens and the angels were ascending and descending? God says to Jacob, Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. What a promise. And you know what? That is the promise that inspired him to wrestle with that angel and not let go. You said, I would tell you, wrestle with God with that promise. Then you have Deuteronomy 31:6 Moses is now speaking to Israel right as he's getting ready to die and Israel's getting ready to enter the promised land. Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them. The Canaanites. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. And of course, this is well known. Joshua 1:5 To Joshua, God says, No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. And then again, 1 Chronicles 28:20 David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and courageous and do it. In other words, lead. Build the temple. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. And you see, the author of Hebrews says, Is that God your God? Is that God of Jacob and Moses and Joshua, David, Solomon, is He your God? Then this promise you have also. And you remember what Scripture says, All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him, Amen, unto the glory of God. If you're in Christ, these promises are yours. You say, yeah, but that promise was made to who? That promise was made to Jacob. That promise was made to Israel. That promise was made to Solomon. That promise was made to Joshua. Yeah, but what Scripture says is if God said that, if you're in Christ, those promises of good are your promises. But there's more. Hebrews 13:5, if you look at it more closely, Keep your life free from the love of money. Do you know your is plural? Say so. Okay, just follow this. Keep your, plural, life free from the love of money. And be content with what you, plural, have. For He has said, I will never leave you. Singular. I'll never forsake you. Singular. You who believe and have trusted Christ. Never. Never. The author makes this very singular and personal. Christian, whatever your circumstances, whatever your circumstances, you see, that's where the never comes in. We feel like He's gone sometimes. We feel like He's abandoned us sometimes. You know, it was David that originally wrote Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? It can feel like that. But God never forsakes us. Don't go by your feelings. He promises each one of us His presence, His help, His favors, His love, His own self. Remember, I've read this to you before, but this is one of my favorite quotes from Edward Payson. And I want to read it to you again. He says, "...Christians might avoid much trouble and inconvenience if they would only believe what they profess, that God is able to make them happy without anything else." You know, when I read that, I thought, okay, stop right there and just ask people, do we even profess that? Do you believe that? Do you walk around saying that? Do you say that to each other? Do you tell that to your family? Do you say to people, you know what? I as a Christian, I've been saved. I can be happy without having anything else. Just God Himself is sufficient. Do you believe that? Are you convinced of that? You see, he assumes that. He says if Christians would only believe what they profess. Do we profess that? That God is able to make them happy without anything else. They imagine that if such a dear friend were to die or such and such blessings were to be removed, they should be miserable, whereas God can make them a thousand times happier without them. To mention my own case, God has been depriving me of one blessing after another, but as every one was removed, He has come in and filled up its place, and now when I'm a cripple and not able to move, I believe I'm happier than ever I was in my life before or ever expected to be. And if I had believed this 20 years ago, I might have been spared much anxiety. But I recognize this. We need reality. Even though we don't want to be misled by subjective feelings when those feelings lie to us, like David thinking he was forsaken, and obviously he wasn't. But being a type of Christ, we know that those words came to be used by our Lord when He actually was forsaken. But the reality is, we want reality. I mean, a promise like this? You know one thing that was true back there in 1999? I had had so many sweet, sweet visitations from the Lord and a closeness and a joy that to read that promise, oh, there was reality. The thing is, if we haven't tasted what it really means to have the Lord close, if that's not real to us, such a promise is just going to be kind of empty. You just walk out of here. It won't grip you. We have to taste that He's good. I mean, the truth is, if I haven't tasted that the Lord is good, then you know what? I walk out of here in a car, a woman, money, ease. It's going to be more to me. What does God say? The Lord says this to us. He says, "...Just draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you. I will never leave you or forsake you." What a blessed, blessed promise. Brethren, we can defy the devil. The devil loves to stand in there and say, you can't be happy unless... You can defy the very devil to even suggest any circumstances to you that you need to be anxious about and that will bring misery upon you. Not if this text is true. Discontent. Remember, discontent is the root of idolatry. The opposite of covetousness in Hebrews 13:5 is content. Covetousness is idolatry. The opposite of that is content. Not content in money, obviously. Content in the reality that God will never leave me or forsake me. My contentment is in Him. He's my portion. That's where the contentment lies. Contentment. I have the living God and I need nothing more. He is the richest man in the world who can have money go past him and cars and houses and beautiful husbands and wives and all that. And he can be content because he has God and he knows he's got the greatest treasure and the greatest riches of all. He's got the Almighty for his own. What else do we need? Really need? What if I lose my job? What if I get sick and don't have insurance? What if I live to be very old and I don't have any retirement? Listen, He'll never forsake you. What if I become an invalid? What if I get old and my kids put me in a nursing home? He says, does He not, even in your old age and to gray hairs, I will carry you. That's the same you who He never leaves or forsakes. Papa, He's going to carry you to the end. But you already believe that. You quote that text. What if I go blind? My vision for the last year has been failing fast. But you know what He says? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And I recognize this, even if these eyes go out, He's still going to reveal Himself to me. My hearing, there was a dog barking last night and all I have to do is turn my good ear to the pillow and I can't hear it anymore. But you know what God promises? My sheep hear My voice. So even if these ears fail and these eyes fail, He's not going to leave me. He's going to continue to talk to me. He's going to continue to show Himself to me. But what if I lose my health or I lose my home or I lose my job? You know what He says? Say to those who have an anxious heart, does that fit anybody? Be strong, fear not, behold, your God will come. With vengeance, with recompense, He will come and save you. God says I'm right here by your side. I'll stay close. You're not going to lose Me. Brethren, do you realize many a child of God, they've lived in shacks and they've been happy. They've been on sick beds and it's been like heaven to them. Have you never read of Richard Wurmbrand and many others? Have you never read of Rutherford? Richard Wurmbrand said in his cell they would have such visitations of Christ. Rutherford said they meant to make that prison a hell to him and God made it very heaven. Where are you going to go where God's not going to be with you? Suppose we die! So what? Then you go to your heavenly Father face to face and forever. Can you be miserable and discontent with a promise like this? Child of God, nothing ought to be able to make us unhappy when you realize the truth of such a precious text as this. As you all leave here today, I was thinking about that song. Scripture. The children were singing about Scripture. The word simple. Do you remember hearing that? Making wise the simple. As you all leave here today, I know who's going away with a spring in their step, joy in their heart, song on their lips. It's that poor, simple Christian who really believes God and takes Him at His word. One who really believes, come what may, the wind, the storm, the dark clouds, the lost, poverty, death, He will never leave you, singular Christian. He'll never forsake you. You may lose home. I may lose home. I may lose my spouse, my child, my health, my own life. But my God is mine and He promises me, singularly promises me, I won't forsake you. I will bring you on to glory. I'll be with you. You belong to me. I'll never abandon you. Many have been brought low. Christians, they've lacked earthly means, but they are so sweetly content and filled with delight and joy. John keeps telling us about this Naples guy over there who it seems like after our visits really has begun to shine. He's a guy that lives in the chicken coop. And John has seen such radical change. This guy lives in a chicken coop. It's really a chicken coop. And it's not much different than a chicken coop now that he lives in it. And he is so happy. You see, this comes back to it. Your life does not consist in what you have. If you have Christ, you have all. We are in a country and we have such wealth, I'm afraid we hardly know how to identify this. One of the things you have to ask yourself, really sit down and do inventory, am I content? Am I content in simply being a Christian? If you have a sham God and a sham faith, this is an empty promise to you. There's nothing to it. But he that believes that this is a real God, there is a real God, and you have real faith, this is a real promise. It has substance. You can joyfully face anything. And I can say this to you, child of God, go away rejoicing today. Why? Because he says to you, I'll never leave you or forsake you. You can shout your hallelujahs and you can be content with that, no matter what you're facing out there in life. James mentioned in the first hour the different sufferings and trials. Well, that may be. But if you can say, hey, God has promised me that He'll be with me. So even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He's going to be with you with His rod and with His staff. He'll not leave you. Never. Some of you, I know you can't delight in this promise because it's not yours. You can't take this promise home because God is against you. The reality is something is presupposed. I will never leave you or forsake you. That means He's already there. Some of you don't have this promise because He's never been there in the first place. If the Lord has never been with you, if He's never forgiven you, if you've never called upon His name, and you need to remember this. We were looking at this in the theology class this week. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But here's the thing. You can't go to Him as an idolater wanting to hang on to your idolatry. If you come to Him, you abandon this covetousness. Lord, I want to be saved from loving everything in life more than loving You. I know we get some of our children and they say, well, I've been calling upon the Lord, but He doesn't save me. But you see, if He saves you, He's going to wash you from all your idols. He's going to cleanse you. Every one of them. He's going to strip them away. See, there has to be surrender. There has to be abandon. But if you really want to be brought to the place where you can be content in only Him, then ask Him to save you that way. Lord, I want to be content in just You. And I admit, I'm not. There are things I want more than I want You. I want that. Brethren, I'll tell you, if you pray for that, you lost ones, if you call upon the name of the Lord and you're wanting to be saved like that, it says everyone who calls will be saved. Call. Don't be hyper-Calvinist. Don't sit there and let yourself rot until you wake up in hell. Scripture says call. Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. Are you done laboring and heavy laden? You know what happens? Typically, people, they taste of the world and they find it's empty. It's just empty. This satisfies you if God is your own even in this world. And if you don't come to Him, you just need to know this. There's sufficient warrant in Scripture. He's sharpening the sword against you. He's drawing that arrow. He's sharpened that arrow at you and He means to release it soon before you are aware. But He invites you. He bids you come. You see the kind of God that He is? He's the kind of God that if He saves you, He doesn't let you go. He takes good care of you all the way until your hairs are gray. He is a good God. And this is not an empty promise. It is a promise you can build your life on. You can hang your life on it. You can stand on this promise that you do not have to love money and the things in this world. Why? There's a good reason. You can be content. Why? Because He has said, I will never, never leave you. He's a good one to not have leave your side. He's powerful and He's good. And He means to do His people good. That through all the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His kindness and grace to those in Christ Jesus. Wow, that's all the ages to come. He's just the fullness of all of His grace is going to be lavished. Remember, this day you'll be with Me in Paradise. See, He doesn't leave or forsake His people. And He's got a mind to take them all the way to Paradise. And Christ Himself said, I want them there so that they may behold My glory, which I had with you before the world began. This thing turns out really good for those who God doesn't leave or forsake. So good that you know what? You can be stripped. Look, let's be honest. Our spouses, our children, we imagine that if they were stripped away from us that that would be incredibly difficult to deal with. We have a God who knows you can lose, and His children often have lost spouses and children and health and the most valuable of possessions have been stripped away. You see, this promise doesn't come for naught. God will test us. We will face these things. We will be challenged with discontent. But we have to come back to this. I have Him. And I'll tell you, the more you experience Him and the more you experience His joy, the more you experience His closeness, the more precious that will become. Because when He visits your soul with manifestations of Himself, you walk away from that and you just say, I want that more than anything else. I want to behold His glory, being close to Him. And you know what? So often what His children find is just like praying Payson of Portland, Maine. God comes along and He strips things away just to precisely show us that this promise is true. He'll take something away and then He'll give Himself all the more to us. Covetousness. Brethren, it ought not to be even named among us. Put on contentment. Why? Because He'll never leave you or forsake you. Father, I pray that You'd bring that reality home to Your people powerfully in reality, sensibly. May they feel it. May they go forth from this place rejoicing in such a reality. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.