“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's” (Exodus 20:17, NKJV).
God gave the Ten Commandments to both men and women, to all the church of Israel. Yet this commandment states, “You shall not covet your neighbour's wife.” So here, and in most of God’s laws, His priority was to address the men, especially the mature, married men. For, in any society, the spiritually mature men are the load-bearing walls of a home. They bear up the roof of God over each family and the whole community, to keep out the winds of destructive lies and doctrines. The men were to be the priests of their homes and families, even their extended families as they aged.
Mature men are ultimately responsible for accepting and maintaining the spiritual, moral and legal principles that every family and all of society lives by. If the mature men know and love God, they provide direction, stability, peace, justice and strength to a family and society. If the mature men do not know and love God, a family or society will drift aimlessly, become unstable, enter senseless wars, become either amoral or immoral, grow unjust and eventually collapse in weakness. Yes, a man who knows and loves God will always consider the input of women, as well as a host of other sources, whenever he makes a decision. And he must try not to become a self-willed, self-serving despot. Yet no woman’s mind of flesh is able to serve God in the way that a male mind of flesh is able to serve God, as a priest who rightly teaches spiritual truth and judges justly, for the sake of all. Although God only chooses a few men to be judges of many, God has never chosen a woman to be an elder who judges. For even the women who were granted the gift of prophecy, the ability to hear and speak the words God commands one to speak, were not allowed to be elders. For example, the prophetess Deborah was under the priesthood of her husband, and God even punished the man who dared to try and raise her to a position of leadership over men. Deborah, a godly woman, had clearly resisted this ungodly attempt to make her an elder or judge. So God only punished the man who was trying to force her to become one, and had his coveted victory in battle granted to a woman’s hands.
All the teachings of God’s Word place a special commission on mature men. Men are to lead their families and community into a godly life of truth and worship in peace, as loving, faithful priests who sacrificially serve their households in the name of God, according to their Father’s commands to the spirits in their hearts. All God’s commands for men are commands for priests, calling them to represent His will to His people and represent the needs of His people before Him—even by laying down their lives and selfish interests in order to meet the needs of His people, and needs of the rest of His creation. So we see, in this tenth commandment, that God's Law should be especially studied by men, by the heads of their homes, as priests leading all into a life of righteous love, like Jesus did.
Of course, the elect spirits of women are exactly the same as the elect spirits of men. So the spirits in women need to follow Jesus, our God, in much the same way men do. Yet female minds of flesh are created to concern themselves with the things of the flesh even more than male minds of flesh do. Elect women tend to express their love by finding out and fulfilling the physical needs of others, and God made women are better at this than men. Of course, not all women are the same, and each elect woman will be better at performing some particular tasks than most other elect women. But, as a whole, women tend to set their highest priority on seeking a safe and loving physical environment, food, clothing and pleasure for all who are brought into the sphere of her life. Female minds of flesh make observations and perform deeds that are critical for the lives of all, which is why God created women to focus more on physical matters. However, in their daily lives, women tend to dismiss the importance of the spiritual principles and concepts that direct, support and make their physical works possible. For women, in general, are to be the most important influence on young children in a godly home, and make their homes, churches and communities into loving and caring places. Yet women need mature males to provide an upholding structure, guiding principles, limitations and directions for their works. Righteousness is for all. So both men and women must work together in Christ our God, in order to accomplish His loving righteousness, and in every aspect of life. Or they will fail.
Now, is it not true that the most universal sign of a soul serving Satan’s world order is covetousness? If one is greedy, always wanting to possess more and more, all for his own pleasures or ego, it means that one has absolutely no knowledge of God or any of God’s ways. Breaking this tenth and least commandment is a sure sign that one is shallow, godless and likely one of Satan’s deluded non-elect children who shall go to hell. This holds true for a covetous man or woman. Literally all non-elect souls, whether or not any of them falsely claims to be a Christian or Jew, will be covetous in some way, and usually spends all God’s gifts of time, energy and resources to become wealthy, leaving nothing for works of pure, just, God-like love. And not a few elect souls also get hooked into this kind of life as well. For covetousness was how Satan lured Adam and Eve into sin, and how Satan is now able to make his subjects accept his bribes to do his evil works. Only the more fully awakened spirits learn to cast aside covetousness more than most others. But this includes the more awakened evil spirits born of Satan’s spirit. The most cherished children of Satan become psychopaths, and may turn their focus away from covetous desires for personal gain, so they may dedicate their lives to causing sins against the first four of the Ten Commandments. However, truly awakened spirits of God’s elect children also begin to lose their desires for things of this world order, and dedicate their lives to Jesus, in order to work with Him in nullifying works of Satan and Satan’s destructive brood.
Unsaved and carnal souls may not overtly appear to be liars, thieves, fornicators, or murderers. Yet they will always display some form of covetousness, without exception. They will strive to become wealthy and more envied for physical possessions or outward appearances than all their neighbours. Conversely, one of the most universal signs of a true elect child of Christ is the eroding of his or her covetous desires. Once Jesus starts to work upon elect spirits, they begin to lose all deluded desires for the things of Satan’s world order, and actually begin to hate that manipulating, ruthless invention of the devil called money. Thus, God commanded, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world” (I John 2:15-16, NKJV). When John spoke about “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” he was talking about covetousness. It is “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” a strong desire for things of the world. And, like all sins, it is a ruthless desire, which does not consider what God wants for us, how God wants us to selflessly sacrifice our very temporary stewardship of physical possessions for the sake of others. Covetousness ignores the needs of others.
One of God’s attributes is His simplicity, His ability to eliminate all superfluous or extraneous efforts and resources while accomplishing the tasks He performs, doing all He does with a clear purpose and pure intent, directing only what is absolutely necessary to get the job done, with no duplicity, with no attempt to make any outward show of His wisdom and power. God works with perfect humility and selflessness. God maintains His absolute purity, accompanied by a deep abhorrence of greed, materialism, self-aggrandizement, fame and despotic power. Thus, this commandment against coveting is telling us to be like Him. He commands us to live a simple life, to pursue just, right and loving motives in all our works. This command originates from the very core nature and heart of our Creator God. And we see how Jesus fulfilled it. Jesus, our God, lived a totally simple, humble and very modest life, working as a poorly paid carpenter. He had the power to make Himself into the most wealthy and powerful King, but chose to come as an impoverished man walking among the common masses. For being an impoverished commoner, ignored by the covetous children of Satan, was the best method of becoming the most effective and most trusted of the teaching elders sent to serve God’s people. It was the best way of sharing all the physical and spiritual gifts He wanted to give to the elect souls living around Him, since they too were poor, never favoured by Satan in that devil’s world order. Jesus never grasped for a higher status nor wealth. Jesus coveted nothing of this world. He clearly did not want any wealth, fame or despotic power offered by Satan’s world order. In fact, when Satan offered to grant Jesus all the wealth and power of the world order, if only Jesus may worship (esteem and serve) him, Jesus declared, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” For “covetousness ... is idolatry” (Col. 3:5). It is self-worship, accompanied by the worshipping and serving of money, inanimate objects, other men and ultimately Satan himself.
God forbade us to covet, lust after, or crave anything belonging to anyone or anything else. Above all, we are not to desire the things belonging to Satan’s world order. And that means we are not to covet money, which was invented by Satan and belongs exclusively to his world order. But we also should not covet good things belonging to others, for each one is unique and has become what God willed one to become. The only thing we may covet is to have the Holy Spirit of Jesus teaching and training our spirits to be loving, just and wise, so we may serve our God by serving His creations. Thus, we cannot even think that it is fine to covet the “Christian” ministry of another person. For, first of all, the “greatest” ministries of the false churches today are actually the kinds of works most highly esteemed by Satan’s world order. They are usually fake shows pretending to serve God, and most “ministers” today are actually serving Satan, not Jesus. But, if Jesus grants a true and faithful disciple a real ministry, and that ministry becomes renowned and seems glorious, it will actually be like Christ’s own ministry. It will entail many sacrifices and much persecution, poverty, violent opposition and impossible works done through the power of Jesus. So the only way one would ever be able to have that kind of ministry would be if Jesus has taught and trained one enough to bear the load of that ministry, and granted one enough inner strength to suffer and die for it. In the meantime, there is no point in wasting one’s time and energy on coveting it. Rather, all one’s time and energy of the spirit should be spent on letting Jesus personally teach and train one for one’s own unique works.
We are not to covet anything which is not ours. Yet covetous business men, including those who claim to be “Christians,” are constantly bombarding us with sexy ads to tempt our flesh, to try to cause us to covet whatever they are trying to sell us, so we will earn more money to buy those things and make them rich. Almost none advertise for the sole purpose of providing objective information about a useful product. Rather, they want us to buy what we do not need, often things which are more harmful than good. Then, in order to have enough money to buy those useless things, we get jobs which enslave us to amoral or even extremely immoral lords, who force us to labour long hours so we can produce an obscene profit for them, and often by doing works that produce nothing of any real, substantial or godly value. Yes, they give us a small wage, as little as they can get away with, so they can steal from their labourers to make themselves more wealthy. Yes, those lords also work as we work for them, labouring long hours, but only because they too think they must earn enough to purchase the useless things we are all taught to covet. So they lay down their lives, as well as the lives of others, to obtain what is useless and very often harmful to other souls and God’s creation. Then many become slaves to debts, which they incur through the delusion that they need to purchase utterly useless things before they earn enough to pay for them. These become doubly slaves, slaves to money and the things money buys, as well as slaves to money lenders, forced to work like dogs to pay their debts, with absolutely nothing of any real value to show for their lifetimes of hard labour.
As societies grow increasingly covetous, the people become more enslaved. They become abused and beaten slaves of Mammon, who is one of the most highly honoured princes in Satan’s kingdom, who is the ruthless god of money, commerce and selfish ambition, and the most highly esteemed god of some. First the people become slaves of human gods, who convince them that they need all that their neighbours have. Then many borrow money for useless things, to keep up with the neighbours, and become slaves of creditors. Then most begin to fail in their ability to pay these debts, since their creditors manipulate the economy to cause this to happen. And their creditors can do this because they create an economy based on money alone, not based on real goods and services. Their creditors build an easily manipulated delusion, a bubble of distorted perceptions which their demon god, Mammon, greatly assists them in building. Soon, even though the people remain perfectly capable of providing all the goods and services needed for all to live a very good life, most goods and services are held back from them, through the delusion that money controls the distribution of these things, by the delusion that Satan’s preferred children must control the distribution of goods and services. So the materialistic people fall into a deeper slavery to money and human gods, into severe and totally artificial restrictions of poverty, where the majority begin to borrow money just to purchase even the most basic necessities of life. Thus, at this stage of the deception, the human gods of the people can now steal almost all of the people’s rightful wages from them, and deny them God’s providence from His natural creation. When a society lives by covetousness, everyone in it will eventually become a worthless and expendable slave of Mammon, who allows no love and no mercy to enter their land.
Of course, while Satan’s world order still exists, we may need to use the devil’s invention of money to interface with the citizens of his dark kingdom. We may need to buy from the world order some things that God wants us to have for the lives and occupations of our people. But we need no more than this. Once we have the lands, homes, tools and supplies we need, we simply do the works God calls us to do and share the fruits of our labours with each other. We live the modest life God created us to live, a life that does not serve the demon Mammon or any form of covetousness, a life that seeks the greatest treasures of life. And those treasures are becoming able to truly and effectively love God and His people, even all His creation, and being truly, justly and purely loved in return.
When Jesus returns, Satan will be cast into hell and his subject kingdom of the world order will cease to exist. So there will be no money used anywhere on earth. Everyone will receive whatever they need for one’s life and works, and all produced by one’s works will be freely distributed to each as each one has need. No one will be allowed to use the delusion of money to manipulate, coerce or enslave anyone else. Instead, we will all live in the reality that God created, where all that God made is able to provide for all our needs. As Jesus teaches truth to our spirits, we begin to realize that all forms of covetousness are delusions, especially the lie that we need money to control the distribution of all goods and services, and that we need human gods to rule by that money, to bear power over all other human beings. The desire to own anything is actually a desire to be a god, since only a god can create and, thus, truly own anything, that is, in a way where one has a right to do whatever one wants with that thing. But there is only one Creator God. So only He truly owns all, including our bodies and spirits. Only God has the right to decide all that will be done with everything. And only He can grant stewardship over anything to anyone. But His kind of stewardship always expects the steward to do His will and work His purposes with whatever He grants one to possess in stewardship. It is also clear that God gives each elect soul only what He deems to be most beneficial for one’s spiritual welfare, as well as for the welfare of all His creations. God never grants anything to anyone so one can use that thing for selfish purposes, at the expense of His creations. God never grants anything so one can bully and abuse others with that thing. All stewardship from God must do God’s will alone.
If anyone gains health, wealth or power for selfish, sinful purposes, that one has not received all that directly from God. Rewards for sin, and the resources to commit sins, are granted by Satan. Yes, God lets Satan give these worldly and carnal rewards and resources to human souls, allows Satan to give the most to his own most ruthless children. So it can be said that God indirectly grants health, wealth and power. But the only reason God allows Satan to give such things to human beings, and usually to the most wicked and loveless of souls, is to fulfill His hidden purposes, such as to punish a loveless land that has strayed too far from Him. None of the selfish and unjust exploiters of this world, with all their health, wealth and power, have been “blessed” by God. Rather, they have been “blessed” by Satan. The devil is a subject king ruling the world order, and the citizens of his kingdom are sinners. So Satan grants the most health, greatest wealth and most power to the worst and most psychopathic of sinners, since Satan loves the worst of sinners most. And all health, wealth and power that is used for sinful purposes is actually stolen from God, from the High King ruling all the subject kingdoms in heaven and on earth. God frequently allows this theft, especially in lands and kingdoms where the people are godless. Nevertheless, theft from God and His creation will have consequences. And God always knows who does the stealing of His property. So not one thief will escape justice. Literally all the selfish rich and powerful souls who stole from God and His people to gratify their carnal desires, who refused to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven, are common, vile thieves who shall all be justly condemned on the last day. And, if lands repent from evil, theft will be stopped while the thieves live on this earth too. For God is love, demanding justice and equity in all His faithful lands.
We need to understand that there are many subject kingdoms on earth, and all are ultimately ruled by the High King, our Father and Brother. Then the major subject kingdoms, like the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom, have many smaller kingdoms within. The animal kingdom has carnivores, herbivores and so on. Then herbivores have deer, cattle and so one. Then cattle have many species, each with its own unique behaviours or “laws,” so each species is a kingdom unto itself. But all these kingdoms are divided by function, purpose and the laws or behaviours required fulfill one part in the ecosystem of God’s whole kingdom on earth. And not one of these subject kingdoms rules over any other subject kingdom, for God alone rules each individual and the whole of each subject kingdom.
There is no steep hierarchy in the natural subject kingdoms, nothing which make one individual greater and more privileged than the other “citizens” of its kingdom, where one bears the right to lord it over others within its own kingdom. It may seem like this to some deluded souls, to those who anthropomorphize animals, who interpret animal behaviours through their human experiences, who believe the lies of Satan’s steeply hierarchical world order. However, each animals simply does what God has created and called it to do, where the pride of a “high” status in a hierarchy is a totally foreign concept to every spirit of every living entity, except the citizens of Satan’s world order. So the dominant male in a “pride” of lions actually has no pride, but simply does what he was born to do, performing his function in “humility,” without feeling that his life is superior to other lives in the group. In fact, the dominant male lion is willing to die to fulfill his duty as the defender of his group, and is the first to fight with other predators who might cause the group to starve. Neither is a queen bee the ruler of her hive, but simply performs the function she was born to do. Not one of these other subject kingdoms is remotely like the steeply hierarchical subject kingdom of Satan’s world order. And no human being was ever meant to live by the “laws” of the subject kingdoms of lions, bees, wolves, cattle or any other species. Creatures like bees and ants do have “workers,” “soldiers” and “queens,” where each kind was meant to continuously work at one specific task. But human beings were never meant to live like bees and ants, and those bees and ants do not actually have hierarchies like Satan’s kingdom has. No bee or ant has any awareness of any kind of superiority of anyone else.
Now the lying subject kingdom of Satan points to animal kingdoms and use the “laws” of those kingdoms to justify their laws, to make their ways seem natural and right. But, first of all, they do not actually tell the truth about those animal kingdoms. They invent a very distorted and humanistic perception of those animal kingdoms, which is a lie. Second, they want us to assume that we are just like those sinless animals, whose spirits automatically obey God and know nothing about any kind of intentional disobedience of the laws God made for their subject kingdoms. But all human beings do possess a knowledge of good and evil, an ability to discern between good and evil. Thus, all human beings have spirits that are capable of intending to obey or disobey the laws that God made for the human kingdom. And this also means that their spirits can learn from their experiences of obedience or disobedience. Human spirits can either learn to cherish God’s laws for the human kingdom, or human spirits can learn to hate God’s laws. Through the experiences of obedience and disobedience, the elect learn the great benefits and wisdom of God’s laws, then delve deeper into a knowledge and understanding of those laws, through a growing love for God and His ways. But the non-elect, who spirits were born of the loveless devil, all want to be their own gods, their own law-makers, like their father. So their experiences teach their spirits to hate God and His laws more each day. Then these children of Satan strive to establish their own kingdoms, though all belong to Satan’s kingdom. For, since each desires to be one’s own god and one’s own lawmaker, they cannot fully unite, with one mind and one purpose, under one head. Many feel they must submit to a more powerful selfish soul, and Satan gives some more power than he gives to others. But each leader must always watch his or her back, since any other vain wanna-be god might stab them in the back to steal the right to be god.
But God’s kingdom on earth is like the kingdom of heaven—where the greatest of all is the one who most faithfully serves God, by faithfully serving all through love, just as God Himself continuously serves all, at great sacrifice to Himself, humbly, without any concept of superiority, without thinking His is superior to those He serves. For God came to us in a lowly body of flesh just like ours, and let us murder that flesh. Jesus, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7, ESV). And God’s will is to deliver all His elect spirits into His heaven, after they have learned to serve in the same way He serves all, through just sacrificial love. Then all material things of this world will burn, will pass away. So the only things we can take with us into heaven, and the only things worth pursuing during our very short lives upon this earth, are God’s spiritual blessings. As our spirits learn to justly love and faithfully serve others, as we learn truths and how to wisely apply those truths, to work loving justice and righteousness, our spirits will grow more like our God each day, and even step into the spiritual kingdom of heaven to be with Him. Day by day, we cast aside the delusions of Satan’s kingdom of the world order. Grounded in reality, we only covet what God grants our spirits, to serve Him according to His will, as He serves our hearts.
Jesus is teaching and training our hearts to fulfill this tenth commandment. This is His first and most basic work in all elect hearts and lives. From infancy, our heavenly Father begins to rebuke all forms of covetousness in elect hearts. And, as soon as Jesus begins to sanctify us for our salvation, His first work is to fulfill this tenth commandment in us and through us, by calling us into a greatly simplified physical existence, into a simple life that shares all things with others, knowing that all belongs to God alone, and that we cannot truly own anything ourselves. We begin to realize how mortal, fragile and dependent we are upon God, upon His creation and upon one another, for all things material and spiritual. His Holy Spirit guides us into an uncluttered and clearly directed life, a spiritual walk beside our Lord, turning aside from the chaos of Satan’s world order. Jesus focuses the eyes of our spirits on Him and His teachings alone, so He might grant us truly useful knowledge, wisdom and love. By serving Jesus, rather than our own flesh, or the carnal wills of human gods, we enter a hardworking and simplified life that benefits all God’s people and creations, in a very real, effective way.
Jesus always grants His elect children a little extra of everything, so they might engage in simple, usually inexpensive fellowship with their brothers and sisters, so His children might feast, talk and celebrate with each other—or perhaps sit pensively, alone, to rest the weary soul, for quiet times in His natural kingdom. Yes, there are also times when God grants extra money, possessions or political power to some of His servants. Since God is the High King, He is even able to grant some things of Satan’s subject kingdom to His elect children, so they might work certain kinds of costly or political deeds for the sake of God’s kingdom, God’s people and God’s creations. But Jesus will never grant His elect any worldly wealth or power so they can purchase the self-indulgent, vile, arrogant garbage of Satan’s world order. The only reason Jesus puts some elect souls in positions of worldly power is so they might develop and implement His ways and laws, to truly fulfill the principles He teaches in His Law and in all His Scriptures, for the benefit of His creation. Or He may grant a few elect souls extra money and resources so they might share all this excess wisely, all they do not need for a very modest life, and lovingly serve those in need. Or He may grant wealth to build homes, hospitals, meeting places and other useful things for others. All God’s gifts are to do good for all His creation.
In God’s created reality, no one can ever truly and absolutely own anything, no matter how hard one might try. For all human beings die, whether or not they want to die. And the death of one’s body proves that a soul cannot truly own anything, not even one’s own body. So how can one possess any material thing with one’s own body? And, after one’s body dies, all one claimed to own continues to exist and others will claim it for themselves. God also granted governments a right to seize property for the good of all, though God often expects them to justly compensate for seized property, when it is just and necessary. But, in the final analysis, all that remains or is destroyed is by God’s will alone. Buildings crumble to the ground. The grass dies and blows away in the wind. The most that God will ever grant anyone is a very temporary stewardship of a speck of property. For all that exists entirely belongs to God, including our own bodies and spirits. Therefore, all existence is to be used for God’s purposes, to do His will on earth as it is done in heaven. And anyone using God’s property in a way that is against God’s revealed will, such as in a way that is against the demands of His Old Covenant Law, sins directly against God Himself, and will be held accountable for that sin on the very last day.
We cannot even claim to own the wages from the works we do with our own hands, since our bodies “earned” that money, and our bodies belong to God alone. Since God grants us a stewardship of our bodies, we bear a right to obtain fair wages from other stewards whom God also owns and appoints. Yet we must then use those wages justly, through love—to care for the souls whom God places in the spheres of our lives. And God forbids any of His children to use their stewardship to lord it over His other children, to exploit His other children for selfish purposes. The one, true, just God never will allow such sins. God will severely punish His stewards who abuse His property for selfish purposes and neglect other brothers and sisters (Mat. 24:44-51). God never will “bless” some elect with more “health and wealth” than others, just so an elite can abuse God’s gifts of stewardship to please only themselves, so they can use Satan’s invention of money to bribe, manipulate or coerce others into serving them as gods, instead of serving the real God. If God does grant health and wealth, it will be for one purpose only, to serve Jesus by lovingly serving others, to sacrificially and respectfully share one’s time, works and possessions with those who need those things. And, if anyone lovingly shares all material things with others, one is only doing what is expected of him or her, as a lowly steward of God’s property. Generosity is nothing, worthy of little praise. Casting aside covetousness fulfills the least of God’s laws, and sharing God’s property to serve the needy is the least of all ministries.
Think about this. Since God’s lowest priority, tenth-order laws against covetousness are the least of His commands, they are the first and most basic laws that Jesus fulfills in the heart of any elect child of the Father, as He works His salvation. And being taught to forsake covetousness is the minimum sign or evidence that Jesus has indeed begun to save a soul, that Jesus has begun to fulfill God’s laws of loving righteousness in and through an elect soul. The tenth-order laws are the “easiest” and most basic concepts a spirit can comprehend, and can be compared to the concepts we teach kindergarten or first