Colossians 3:5, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
Covetousness
is without a doubt the biggest sin in the world today. Carefully notice that Colossians 3:5 calls covetousness IDOLATRY. Anything
that takes higher priority in your life than OBEYING the Bible (i.e., God's
holy Word) is idolatry.
There are many forms of idolatry in the world. We don't hear much preaching against covetousness because it is such a commonplace sin that it almost seems futile to spend time preaching against it; but a true man of God is expected to preach THE TRUTH, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The truth is that covetousness is the root of all evil. That why people LOVE MONEY, which 1st Timothy 6:10 condemns as the ROOT OF ALL EVIL. That's what MONEY brings... temporary things, temporary pleasures, temporary comforts, temporary conveniences, temporary security, temporary toys and artificial happiness. But as 1st Timothy 6:7 says, you can't take any of it with you... not one red cent! 1st Timothy 6:7, “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
Covetousness is doing wrong to get money, a promotion, or fame. So many people today are willing to do evil to get money. This is why God called the love of money the root of all evil. There was a popular scam going years ago amongst doctors in the state of Illinois (and I'm sure in many other places as well, if not nationwide), where doctors were performed unnecessary C-sections on pregnant women just to steal from the welfare department. A C-section is where a doctor surgically cuts the mother open and removes the baby, instead of a normal delivery through the womb. Each C-section added thousands-of-0dollars in profits to the doctor's bank account.
When a woman takes her clothes off to make money, it is sin. The Bible in 1st Timothy 2:9 commands women to dress in modest apparel. That means properly clothed, not exposing one's breast cleavage, thighs or wearing see-through clothing.
Women who strip naked for women's catalogs are sinning. Men look at those catalogs left around the house. I have always been against women's lingerie catalogs, because they are soft porn catalogs in reality. It is evil.
We read in Philippians 3:18-19, “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”
Most people today have become their own god, living for their BELLY . . .
Philippians 3:18-19, “(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)”
America in particular has been spoiled rotten, to where people have no gratitude whatsoever anymore. Jesus healed the 10 lepers, but only one returned to say thank you (Luke 17:15-17). Woe unto America and Europe! Americans DON'T trust in God--we trust in greed and goods! The sin of covetousness is overtaking us. We have become a land of lust. The love of money has led to every evil imaginable in America--pornography, gambling, prostitution, police corruption, crooked politicians, bad business, Christian rock, thievery, abortion, lasciviousness, etc. 1st Timothy 6:10 warns, "For the love of money is the root of all evil..."
Ezekiel 33:31-32, “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.”
Covetousness is the Love of Things and Pleasure
Most
people nowadays will do just about anything to get money. This is
exactly what God is saying in 1st Timothy 6:10. It's the "love" of
money that is so evil. What is the "love of money"?
Money is just paper with ink on it, so we know that money in itself isn't evil. Rather, it's what money can do--it buys us things and pleasure! So the Word of God is actually warning that the love of THINGS AND PLEASURE is the root of all evil. This is covetousness.
We read in 2nd Thessalonians 212, "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." We are commanded in the Word of God NOT to love this world ... "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
God has blessed mankind with the privilege of enjoying the pleasures and things of this world; BUT, He sets divine limits and establishes moral Laws for us to obey. Greed and covetousness are the sins which causes us to cross those moral lines. It is a constant battle in a land as plenteous as America not to become covetous. As Christians, we are commanded NOT to be covetous of this world, "Let your conversation be without covetousness..." (Hebrews 13:5).
It's a disturbing paradox! ... Covetousness is the ROOT of all other sins; yet, it is not recognized for the villain it is, and few preachers preach against it.
The Ten Commandments forbids coveting in Exodus 20:17, "Thou shalt not covet..." Most people today don't think they are covetous. Very few people recognize what covetousness is. Balaam became covetous, and led Israel into fornication and idolatry because of it. Jude 1:11 states, "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." In Numbers 22-25, we read about the false prophet Balaam. The Israelites had just defeated the Amorites in Numbers 22, and now Moab was scared they were next. The king of Moab (Balak) had sent his princes to make Balaam an offer.
If Balaam the prophet would curse the Israelites, the king of Moab promised Balaam fame and ANYTHING he wanted (Numbers 22:17). Wow! Anything he wanted—gourmet foods, fame, women, fortune, et cetera. Balaam stood his ground in refusing to curse the Israelites; BUT, at the same time devised a mischievous plan to where he could have the best of BOTH world's. Balaam wanted the good life that the king of Moab had promised, as made evident in 2nd Peter 2:14-15...
"Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness."
Balaam knew that he dare not curse the
Israelites, and I don't think he really wanted to either; BUT, he was sinfully
covetous, like many people today. They want that money! Balaam
"loved the wages of unrighteousness." What does that mean? It
means that Balaam was willing to compromise his integrity and disobey God to
get rich. The entire pornography industry would evaporate overnight if
they stopped making money. Women are selling their souls to Satan to
make money, to buy things. So they sacrifice their virtue on the alter
of covetousness, greed, and immorality. This is idolatry! Pornography
is a horrible sin rooted in covetousness.
This is why right-wing
conservative preacher, Jerry Falwell, was willing to accept $3,000,000 from
sex-pervert cult
leader,
Sun
Myung Moon for his struggling school. Moon actually
convinces women to
have sex with him as a purification process. Why would Jerry Falwell
yoke up with such a God-hater? Falwell has also
endorsed the demonic
ministry of Benny Hinn. Oh how men and women love the wages of
unrighteousness. The entire Christian rock industry is rooted in greed
and covetousness. I triple-dog dare you to show me even one mainstream
so-called "Christian" rock group that presents the Biblical Gospel on their
website. They are a bunch of sell-outs, sold out to Satan!
Christian rap, or hip hop, is just as sinful.
Covetousness and Pornography
Covetousness is why professed Christian and country singer, Faith Hill, has already posed twice in Playboy magazine ... anything for the wages of unrighteousness! We are living in perilous times when people are willing to strip naked, pervert the Word of God, corrupt their morals, defile themselves, and compromise nearly all standards to make money! The root issue is COVETOUSNESS. If I don't want anything, then the Devil can't tempt me. If we want something bad enough, Satan will ALWAYS provide a way for us to get it. Those young punks, with their Girls Gone Wild videos, really think they're smart. They're making billions of dollars!
Can you imagine how hot their Hell is going to be for corrupting the minds of millions of people? I wonder how many little girls are going to be molested and raped because of those Hellish videos? America has become the land of lust. It's called lasciviousness ... unhealthy sexual desire. Society today is filled with pedophiles and pederasts, many of whom are homosexuals. As America continues to spit in God's face, reject the Bible, and laugh at those of us who preach morality—sexual sins are running rampant. Lust is rooted in covetousness, and the creeps making those sicko videos are in serious trouble with God! Victoria's Secret is NO longer a secret, and we can't even take our children into shopping malls anymore because of the nudity and sensuality being publicly displayed.
Covetousness and Debt
It's
no secret that bankers are some of the biggest crooks on the planet, and
they do it all legally. Sit down sometime and calculate the ACTUAL
interest you're paying on your credit cards and you'll agree. Credit
card companies are so malicious that they want you to be stuck in debt for
life, which is why they continually send out those blank checks to their
customers (or should I say "victims"). It is evil to deliberately
entice people to go into debt so you can make a profit.
Credit card companies are very unethical and rotten to do this. No wonder so many Americans are in massive debt! For issuing banks to blame the consumer is like blaming a child for playing with a loaded gun which was deliberately handed to him. The average consumer knows as much about the dangers of credit cards as does a child about a loaded gun. There's a lot of gimmicks and traps that the banks will NEVER tell you about. They're crooks!
There's something nowadays called "Interest Only Payments" and it's a trap. In reality, they're telling you that you CAN'T afford it. Folks, if you only pay the interest on a loan, then you're NOT paying off the loan. This is another deceptive practice of the godless bankers who work relentlessly to keep us in financial bondage. No one should buy a home on a a 40-year mortgage. That's crazy! The amount of compounded interest that the bank is collecting is staggering. And might I add—the chances of you defaulting on making those payments over 40-years, and the chances of the bank foreclosing on your home, is greatly increased. Don't be a fool.
The exception is if you plan to pay the loan off early, and there are no prepayment penalties. I recently searched the MLS home listings in the Kansas City area, and found over 200 homes for sale under $25,000. Now that's a home that most people can afford, and you can pay it off in 10-15 years. I would still go with a 30-year mortgage, so you have the extra time to pay down the loan if hard times come. As I mentioned, just make sure that there are no "pre-payment penalties," so that you can pay it down as soon as possible WITHOUT paying any penalties. Interest Only Payments are extremely foolish.
It is good advice nowadays to owe no man
anything, as we read in Romans 13:8 ... "Owe no man any thing, but to
love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." This Scripture is teaching us that we should be financially honest, and not
make people wait to receive money we owe them. The BEST policy is
not to go into debt in the first place if we can avoid it. Pay off
your bills because the borrower is servant to the lender, as we read in
Proverb 22:7, "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant
to the lender."
The Evils of Gambling
The suicide rate amongst gamblers is 150% higher Herbert Jenkins, former president of the International Association of Police Chiefs, said ... "For every dollar received in gambling taxes, government spends ten-dollars fighting problems directly related to legalized gambling—prostitution, embezzlement, bad checks, police corruption, racketeers and mobsters sworn to the gambling community and bring with them other businesses."
Former FBI director, Clarence Kelly, declared that "legalized gambling would not help eliminate corruption; but rather would develop a new class of gamblers who would switch to the illegal games as their addiction grows." Wake up America! It is covetous to desire to get money without labor. Read more...
Gambling and casinos are inseparable. Anywhere you find casinos, you'll find nearly every sin
imaginable-prostitution, adultery, jealousy, pride, hate, substance abuse,
homosexuality, pornography, blackmail, extortion, violence, lasciviousness,
booze, boasting, greed, cursing in God's name, indifference, rape, smoking,
mobsters, selfishness, lying, etc. Gambling began in the Devil's
house, and that's where it will end--in perdition!
The Stock Market is Rigged
And let me say—the stock market is nothing more than gambling these days. The markets are rigged from within. The stock market is a man-made invention designed to take away the public's wealth ... it is a scam. This has been documented. Read the following article from Richard Ney's book titled, "The Wall Street Gang" ...
"The hard-hitting market critic, Richard Ney, has written three books that I know of. His first, and probably most famous, is The Wall Street Jungle, written in 1970. He next wrote The Wall Street Gang, published in 1974 by Praeger Publishers. Chapter 2 of the latter book opens as follows:
It is no accident that most investors lose money in the stock market. Their losses are an inevitable by-product of their ignorance of how little they know about the invisible world of the Stock Exchange. Like machines dominated by external influences, they are capable only of mechanical action.
Regrettably, the arrangements that exist to preserve the traditions and legalize the frauds of the security industry are inseparable from the general organization of a society controlled by the financial establishment, a society whose laws and principal customs have been contrived to serve the special interests of the financial community. Thus, although the Stock Exchange's most profitable practices clearly compromise the freedoms granted others by the constitution, Exchange Insiders are granted immunity from the legal obligations and penalties that should be imposed on them."
There are many tricks, deceits, and fraudulent practices within the rigged stock market--don't be a fool. Ninety-five percent of the people who invest in the stock market lose their shirts. The market-makers are experts at manipulation. All it takes is a quick phone call to a buddy at some brokerage house, and then a "buy" rating is announced on some particular stock. After the stock shoots up, a different brokerage house downgrades it the next day to a "hold" rating. The public loses money time after time, as stocks are manipulated from within.
Market-makers will do what is necessary to cheat the public every time. The stock market is a big mirage of false value. We're told by the "financial "experts" that it's a good deal to buy a stock with a P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio of about 20/1. Are you nuts? You expect me to believe than a $1 stock is a good value at $20, based on what the public supposedly thinks the company might do in the future? Would you pay $60 for a gallon of milk if I said it was a good value? Listen folks, and I'm not kidding, the U.S. stock markets are ticking time-bombs waiting to implode. Dollar for dollar, the entire stock market is virtually worthless.
The entire market is an arbitrary system of numerical values which mean absolutely nothing because there is NO INTRINSIC VALUE. I can eat a commodity such as corn, or oranges; but stocks are literally worthless. It's a risky game of Russian Roulette.
Gambling and Suicide
Citizen Magazine published an alarming account of gambling addiction and suicide in the July of 2002 issue. Written by Jeff Hooten, this Citizen story describes the destructive nature of addiction in the lives of two men. There are over 15 million people that struggle with gambling as an addiction. Suicide attempts for pathological gamblers are higher than any other addiction. One out of every five will attempt suicide. Read The Fever on Citizen Magazine's web-site.
Solomon Bell's
suicide was, of course, unspeakably tragic-but hardly remarkable. Last week
the Detroit police sergeant, despondent over massive gambling losses, pulled
out his service pistol and killed himself at a blackjack table in one of the
city's new casinos.
The tragedy was unremarkable in that it is merely a microcosm of how the
gambling industry functions on a daily basis. On this day alone, casino
operators enriched themselves by almost $20,000 at the victim's expense.
Sergeant Bell's family, friends, and the Detroit community are impoverished
beyond measure.
To the gambling mercenaries, such public relations indelicacies are merely
part of the price to be paid for this form of "harmless entertainment."
That's why the MotorCity Casino refused to shut down even temporarily in the
face of this tragedy. In fact, within hours gamblers were allowed back into
the area where the suicide occurred, blood-stained carpet notwithstanding.
Explained a casino spokesman: "It's not like Bell died some honorable kind
of death. He chose to kill himself. We saw absolutely no reason to close
down our business and deprive our patrons the use of our fourth floor."
Such crass and heartless reasoning might shock you. It shouldn't. This is
precisely how casinos function-how they must function. Even the most jaded
of gambling executives would go mad were they to come to grips with the
depth of pain and devastation engendered by their venomous product.
Casinos instead attempt to delude with claims that they benefit communities
by creating jobs, tourism and economic development. It is an elaborate
smokescreen; casinos operate solely for the purpose of parting people from
their money. Former Nevada deputy attorney general Chuck Gardner put it
succinctly: "No one in the history of mankind has ever developed or operated
a casino out of a burning desire to improve the lot of humanity."
A Few Gambling suicides:
Richard Hagstrom was a 57-year-old insurance adjuster whose gambling habit started to catch up with him … He was running into money problems, and it had become the source of arguments between him and his wife, Charlyn. …police found her body in her bedroom. Someone had beaten her to death. … Richard Hagstrom was the authorities’ only suspect. … He shot himself in his brother’s farmhouse … Richard had accumulated overwhelming gambling debts…
On Linda Raasch’s dining room table lay a foreclosure notice and several letters demanding payment on overdue bills. Her electricity was about to be shut off. In the garage, Raasch’s car was running, the windows rolled down. She was inside, poisoned by carbon monoxide. She liked to play video poker machines, and she usually played just three quarters at a time. The quarters added up.
"Suicide attempts among pathological gamblers are higher than for any of the addictions and second only to suicide attempt rates among individuals with major affective disorders, schizophrenia and a few major hereditary disorders," researcher Rachel Volberg said.
A 16-year-old slit his wrists after losing $6,000 - four years of newspaper delivery earnings - on the lottery in a single day.
The Canadian Press has learned that Alberta recorded gambling in the files of 10 percent of suicide victims in 2001, while Nova Scotia investigators found it was a factor in 6.3 per cent of suicides in the last two years. … Alberta medical investigator Dennis Caufield says gambling-related suicides increased after addictive VLTs were installed in 1992. "Absolutely, without a doubt," he said in an interview. "It's a frightening thing … To me, it's quite bizarre that people become so consumed by this need [to gamble] that they feel the only way to stop it is to take their own life." —SOURCE (Read about more suicides)
Gambling casinos are some of the
coldest, deadest, most selfish, cut-throat places on earth. Would to
God they were all shut down forever!!! Someday, when Jesus returns, He
WILL do just that—SHUT THEM DOWN!
Conclusion
Covetousness is the root of all
sin, and we are warned in the Word of God to be CONTENT with food and
raiment, "And having food and raiment let us be therewith content"
(1st Timothy 6:8). Can you imagine ... an American being happy with
just food and clothes to wear? What about the TV and the DVD player?
What about the new car and the deluxe automatic dishwasher? I realize what I am preaching here is about as popular as leprosy; but it is Biblical. We are so spoiled rotten in America that we haven't a clue as to just how wicked we have become as a people.
So many people are mad at God because they can't keep up with the American lifestyle; but the Word of God says you are fortunate to have food to eat, and clothes to keep you warm. Let us be diligent to guard against unholy desires, and selfish appetites, which lead to temptation and sin. Covetousness is a war against the Spirit of Christ within us.
Always remember, the greatest things in life are not things.
