The 10th Commandment

- You Shall Not Covet -

This message is also available in audio format. To Listen click arrow below

You shall not covet… (Deuteronomy 5:21). A covetous person is defined by a continuous, vicious cycle of seeing, touching, tasting, having, and owning tangible things that pass before their eyes. These sensory experiences act as wide-open gates that, if left unclosed, will inevitably lead to the complete ruin of an individual’s life and render all their works as nothing before the Almighty One of Israel. To be a wanting person is a grave spiritual offense, likened by Yahshua (Jesus) to being an adulteress who refuses to remain satisfied with the one true love to whom she is betrothed. A covetous person is never satisfied; you can never possess godliness with contentment, nor experience the true joy of Yahveh God, while bound by it. The enemy blinds us with what we do not have and what we want, keeping us captive to our desires. This insatiable greed—where there is simply never enough—mirrors Satan himself, who is never satisfied and perpetually demands more. When a person allows covetousness to take root, they quickly become jealous of what others possess. Jealousy is coveting what someone else has; you want to be like they are. This jealousy opens every single door for other demons, unlocking portals of hell to flood the life with anger, sin, and corrupted motives. As it is written, “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing” (James 3:16). This selfishness causes you to covet and greedily desire the idols of this world, joining with the multitudes who worship other gods rather than the one true living God. We will need true deliverance from a jealous spirit to get all of those demonic doors closed through deep repentance.

This deep-seated spiritual deception is so grave that it is currently destroying the souls of countless individuals who erroneously believe they are heading to heaven. This captivity prevents us from entering the Kingdom of Heaven because covetousness is idolatry. “For this you know with certainty, that no… covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Messiah and of God” (Ephesians 5:5). No covetous person shall enter the Kingdom. A person can spend their entire life loving Jesus, worshiping Him, teaching, and preaching, but if they remain ruled by an unquenchable desire for the things of this life, their passions become a burning fire that will ultimately consume them inside and out in the fires of hell. This is why Yahshua (Jesus) used such radical imagery in Matthew 18:8-9, instructing us that if our hand, foot, or eye causes us to sin through covetousness and idolatry, we must cut it off or tear it out. It is better to enter into life maimed than to be thrown into the fires of hell with two covetous eyes. Yahshua (Jesus) sees exactly what our eyes look upon and what our hands reach for because of what we see, want, and do not have. When we allow these worldly desires to drive us, it corrupts our prayer life. It keeps us from praying with a right and holy heart before Yahveh our God. Instead, we greedily pray only for what we want, fulfilling James 4:3-4: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures.” You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? If you long for an inheritance in this world, you make yourself an enemy of Yahveh the Almighty Creator. As the Scriptures warn, “The greedy man curses and spurns Yahveh (the LORD).” Even worse, if the Almighty does grant these selfish, worldly requests, it is to the individual's eternal detriment, granting them what they want but sending a crippling leanness to their soul. Like the craving Israelites in the desert who perished due to their intense lust for things outside of Yahveh’s loving provision, these individuals become like a skeleton of dead man’s bones in His sight, animated only by Satan’s unquenchable desires.

The worst tragedy of a covetous life is that your relationship with your God and Savior remains trapped in your thoughts and intellect—it is never a true relationship of the heart. To build a true relationship of the heart, we must be weaned from covetous desires. To escape this destruction, the mandate "Thou shalt not want" must be printed indelibly on the mind, reflecting the true depth of Psalm 23."The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" means you literally cannot and must not want worldly things. If a believer truly loves the Father with all their heart and their neighbor as themselves, all worldly desires are entirely summarized and extinguished in that love. However, we live in a sensual body with an innate fleshly nature that is never satisfied. 

We cannot become truly spiritual people until we start learning to deny ourselves, crucifying the very members of our body that pull us toward the world. As Mark 7:21-23 reminds us, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed… deeds of coveting and… defile the man.”Therefore, we must obey the words of Colossians 3:5: “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” We must put to death the wanting, idolatrous flesh to possess godliness with contentment, which is great gain, which is Yeshua (Jesus).

True spiritual warfare only begins once a person is genuinely born again and enters the battle against the flesh. Believers must realize that they are born into a human DNA of inherited sinfulness that naturally breaks the commandments, does its own will, and operates as an enemy to Yahveh, really doing the will of Satan, who is your father, rather than the Almighty being your Father. As the Apostle Paul openly lamented in Romans 7:15-25, there is a severe internal war: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out…  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Yahshua Messiah [Jesus Christ] our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” It is only after being born again that a person truly understands this operation of sin and actively stops giving into the flesh, choosing instead to take every thought captive to the obedience of Yahshua.

Conquering this internal enemy requires a continuous, daily crucifixion of the fleshly nature, which can never be content on its own and will always wage war against the soul. Our flesh is our number one enemy that we have to fight because it never will be content with anything other than what it wants, what it sees, and to do things according to our flesh's ways. As 1 Peter 2:11 urges, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your souls…” Our passions are never satisfied until we're born again and we have one passion, that is Yahshua, His will, His desire, and being with Him, and near Him, and in Him. He is our passion! so we put to death our flesh continually, hating even our own lives as Yahshua said, so that He is our first and utmost love. Everyone and everything that takes us away from Him is an enemy. As John warns, 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 is passing away and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:16-17). What do you crave, dear one? Do you truly want Yahveh? He says, “…I give you Myself and that is your reward, you will have no inheritance in this land.” If you passionately long for a portion and an inheritance in this world, your heart has shifted away from Him toward an idol.

Remember, gods and idols are anything that siphons off our wholehearted love, preventing us from fulfilling the first and most important commandment: “You shall have no other god before Me.” You shall love Yahveh (the LORD) with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength—not the things of this world. We are to be totally satisfied and passionately in love with Yahshua, our Messiah, and soon-coming Bridegroom. This is not about religion, this is about a love affair, and all these Commandments are written for those who are passionately in love with their Creator and will obey whatever He says. To break His commandments is not just to break a rule; it is to betray the heart of the Bridegroom. It is this realization of His terrifying holiness and our deep love for Him that makes us understand the weightiness of the commandments. This is the standard the Almighty has given us. This is the love of Yahveh: to keep all of His commandments, and they are not burdensome. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him: he who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. He is love, and we have to reflect Him in word and deed.

We cannot do this apart from being born again. (John 3:3) The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. So, I say then, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But put on the Master Yahshua Messiah, make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. We must live in Yahshua’s Spirit, dying to our flesh daily so that we can walk in a manner worthy of Yahveh—doing His will, keeping His commandments, and loving at all times, even our enemies. The reality is that we cannot keep these commandments in the natural; it can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit, who teaches us and leads us into the love of His perfect will. No one is righteous, no, not one, unless they are born again and can walk as Yahshua walked—showing us how to do so by the power of the Spirit. If you are trying to obey in the natural, it may look like you are being obedient on the outside, but it does not qualify. If it is not generated by the Spirit in a born-again person, it is merely an attempt under the law. Even for the Jewish people, simply trying to keep the law was not enough; they had to be born again in order to truly fulfill it as Yahshua did, accomplishing His Father’s will entirely in love by the power of the Spirit. Ultimately, humanity is divided into two distinct spiritual camps: those who satisfy the desires of the flesh will all be marked with man’s number 6 6 6 —man's desires, man’s will, man's breaking the commandments in order to have their own way. Then there are the ones who are dead to their flesh, alive in the spirit, becoming more and more pure and holy as children of the living God walking in His number of divine perfection 7 7 7: Yahveh, Yahshua, and the Holy Spirit. We are either for Him or against Him. Everyone should shudder and tremble in fear at the breaking of His Commandments. May our hearts be pierced with conviction and brought to humble repentance, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of Yahveh” (Romans 3:23). Let those who wholeheartedly desire to understand and obey Yahveh’s commandments seek Him with all their heart, soul, and strength while He may be found. Repent, put to death the deeds of the flesh, and be cleansed in the atoning blood of Yahshua the Messiah. Make ready for the coming of the King of Glory!

Want to Learn More?

- Redefining the Feasts of Israel Through the Ten Commandments -

Want to learn even more about YAHveh's holy Ten Commandment? Check out Terrye G. Seedman's book "Redefining the Feasts of Israel Through the Ten Commandments." The Holy Days pivot around the Ten Commandments, these were appointed times to meet with Him that would help them to walk by His Spirit’s leading in these Commandments.  Indeed, there would be no feasts if it was not for the Ten Commandments and the penalty of sin for not upholding them and there would also be no need of Messiah.  The Ten Commandments point us to Him and YAHshua (Jesus) the schoolmaster points us to the truth so we can walk in a way worthy of everything that He has taught us to be.  “Not of the letter but of the Spirit.  For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6) This book unlocks truths from YAHveh's (the LORD’s) divine Ten Commandments to redefine the true meaning and fulfillment of the holy Feasts of Israel. Simply, the divinely appointed times, the feast days, pivot around the blood on the altar of sacrifice—on the mercy seat, for the forgiveness of sin and sin points us back to the Commandments. Therefore every feast is exalting the Commandments of YAHveh, exalting our Lamb who came and died because we can’t uphold the Commandments without His help.  They are inextricably linked. You can’t separate the feasts from the Commandments and you cannot separate the Lamb of God who is the ultimate fulfillment of the holy temple, priesthood, and the sacrificial system’s substitutionary sacrifice for our sin nature. Learn all of this and more in this powerful book about YAHveh's (the LORD’s) divine commandments and holy feasts.

The Ten Commandments