My
favorite baseball player, Josh Hamilton, recently made the news because he
relapsed into cocaine and alcohol use. He’s facing a lengthy suspension that
could likely cost him about 4 million dollars a month in lost salary. Criticism
has begun to swirl and judgments are plentiful. It is hard for many to
understand how someone who makes mega millions playing baseball would take a
chance on blowing it because he can’t control his addiction. It’s sad to watch
someone struggle so hard with a sin that they can’t seem to overcome. I pray
that he will, by God’s grace, be delivered from his addiction. However, his
addiction happens to be a socially unacceptable addiction. Funny how people’s
struggles with these types of sins are so much more difficult to understand
than people’s addictions to socially acceptable sins. It’s true that the use of
mind altering drugs, legal or not, is a sin, but it’s equally true that
covetousness is an equally damnable sin and very few people seem to be as troubled
about the epidemic of it in our culture. Consider Paul’s words,
“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.”
Ephesians 5:5
You can be absolutely sure that God is
every bit as offended by the sin of covetousness as he is with the sin of drug
use. In our culture you can be completely consumed with this sin and no one
will raise an eyebrow. If you wake up tomorrow tempted to give in to this
addiction, you can go out and buy a new boat to feed it. No one will judge you.
The next day you can struggle with it again and go purchase the hottest car on
the market to satisfy your lust. Your friends will rejoice with you. Day after
day you can feed the flesh like a glutton and no one will notice or care
because they will share your addiction. In our culture, this wicked sin
disguises itself as the American dream.
The Apostle Paul had an entirely different
perspective on this sin. When he read, “Thou
shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17) it killed him. That is to say, he was
brought under the conviction of his profound sinfulness and became aware of his
personal spiritual death. Sin is any violation of God’s law (1 John 3:4) and
that law brought Paul to the realization that his heart was filled with the sin
of covetousness, making him an idolater (Romans 7). This realization is
essential to the work of grace that leads to salvation. You cannot be redeemed
by the grace of God until you’ve been condemned by the law of God. Jonathan
Edwards once said, “It’s easier to scream down a thousand sins of others than
it is to mortify one sin in yourself.” Similarly, it’s easier to scream down
the sin of a drug addict than it is to mortify the sin of covetousness in
yourself. That’s why “…it is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for a rich person to
enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). Do not let our culture’s tolerance of covetousness lull
you into thinking that your addiction is any more tolerable to God than a
cocaine addict’s. Do you think that you are any less a sinner than someone
else? “No, I tell you; but unless
you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3)
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