Discover The Word

Thursday, July 30, 2009, Part 2

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17).

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Deuteronomy 5:21).

IDEA: We should be concerned about crime in our society, but we should also be concerned about secret sins in our lives.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand that God is concerned both with sinful acts and secret sins.

What is the difference between crimes and sins.

I. Of the two, which do you think God is most concerned with? Why?

God is concerned with crimes. In many of the elaborations of the Ten Commandments are crimes that the community has to deal with.

There are laws against stealing.

There is the law about building a parapet around your flat roof.

Christians should be concerned about good laws against crime.

II. God is also concerned about sins.

Many passages in the Psalms deal with secret faults.

Psalm 19:12 prays, “Cleanse me from secret faults.” Some transgressions are not seen by others, but they are still sin.

Psalm 90:8 tells us that our secret sins stand in the light of God’s face: “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.”

Psalm 139:23-24 prays, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my anxieties, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” The psalmist prayed that because we ourselves often don’t realize what kind of wrongdoing dwells in our hearts.

What do you think the psalmist means when he talks about secret sins or secret faults?

One may be acts that no one else knows about.

Or they could be the motives that prompt us to do what we do.

Covetousness may be a secret sin, but it can also be a crime.