“You Can't Always Get What You Want” - Exodus 20:17 (Larry Malament)

Sermon Quotes:

Philip Ryken: “There is always something envious about coveting. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Before Eve took the forbidden fruit, she coveted it (Genesis 3:6). This was not because she admired it as a piece of fruit, but because Satan tempted her to envy by telling her that if she ate it, she would be like God. Eve took the fruit to gain something she was not intended to have.  We have been sinning this way ever since. One good place to see it is in a nursery filled with toddlers. Nothing arouses a child’s interest in a toy like seeing it in the hands of another child, and the transition from coveting to stealing is almost instantaneous. Adults are subtler when they covet. Its revealed in that little twinge of disappointment whenever someone else gets what we want. It’s how we react when a coworker gets the promotion, when our roommate finds romance, and we are still single, or when a friend goes where we can only dream of going on vacation”.

T Desmond Alexander:“Coveting is not only wrong because it reflects a self-centered craving to deprive one’s neighbor of something that is an integral part of his or her life, but more importantly it is an offense to God for it expresses criticism of how he provides for each individual”.

C.H. Spurgeon: “It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin.”

Jeremiah Burroughs: “I find a sufficiency of satisfaction in my own heart, through the grace of Christ that is in me. Though I have not outward comforts and worldly conveniences to supply my necessities, yet I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to satisfy me in every condition.”