"Christ's Presence - The Cure for Covetousness” by Rev. Tom Ellis

Reformation Presbyterian Church (Free Church of Scotland, Continuing), Atlanta, Georgia on December 11, 2016

Scripture Text: Hebrews 13:5

We are looking into the book of Hebrews the thirteenth chapter and particularly the fifth verse. Let us read together again this portion of God’s Word. “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

Is it possible to overcome the sin of covetousness and mortify the anxiety created by our lusts, by our desires for the things of the world? We do have such covetousness in our lives if we are honest, and we do not always control it as we should, and mortify it as we need. 

There is sometimes this great sin, this abominable sin, called covetousness, in our lives. Can we learn to be content with present things? Not to be content is a great sin. Is it possible that we men and women, children as well, would overcome covetousness and learn to be content with present things?

Yes it is. No it isn’t. No it isn’t. Yes it is. Not perfectly, for we do recognize that this is one of those sins which we must continually pray against and repent for. It shows itself, how? In a fretful fear and complaining and craving and longing in a desire for more, for more of this world, for more than we have in this present life.

It makes us envious, envious of those who seem to be prospering more than we.

And we sometimes feel some of this, do we not?

Now the opposite of covetousness is what? Well, it’s contentment. The text even says that. Let me remind you what our catechism says about the Tenth Commandment. What are the duties required in the 10th commandment?

“The duties required in the tenth commandment are…such a full contentment with our own condition, and such a charitable frame of the whole soul toward our neighbor, as that all our inward motions and affections touching him, tend unto, and further all that good which is his.”

So we will be seeking the good of our neighbor if we learn not to be covetous. We will be content and we will seek to help our neighbor rather than hinder his prosperity. Too often we can be envious of the prosperous. And sometimes we do feel like we are justified when the wicked do rise and seem to prosper. But what about when the righteous are prospering, and we still feel envy? It is wrong in both cases, and should be repented for in every case.

When we have learned contentment then we will do nothing sinful to escape the most dreadful losses that we might ever experience, so that we will do the right thing even when we are at a crossroads, and we are losing -- we seem to be losing, our possessions, even our life.

So it would show itself, this contentment, in a quiet, patient, even cheerful, and thankful, spirit. Not feeling the discontent of the changing conditions that come into our lives.

Now the way to escape this hateful discontent is that we learn to be content by realizing the real and the full way in which God has shown Himself and given Himself to us as our God and our Savior. And this is the cure. When we can learn to be content with such things as we have. By what? Seeing that the Lord is not against us, but He is for us and will never leave us and will never forsake us.

It’s because we don’t believe that, not with fullness, not with clarity, not with conviction -- that He is never going to leave us, never going to forsake us -- that we are so discontent and fearful and envious and all these other things that come with this discontent.

If we realized, if we knew that God would never leave us and forsake us, we would never be discontent because we would have the one thing most needful, always, as He has promised, and has given it.

Now the source of contentment versus covetousness is the knowledge that the Lord is present and faithful and a compassionate friend who will never forsake and will never leave us.

Foes may assail us, friends may desert us, power and possessions may take wings and fly away; but He will never leave us, He will never forsake us.

He has never failed you.  And He never will fail you. “Never, no never, no never forsake,” says the poet.

Now, to move us to this, to give us that sort of motive, He has said, “What?” For He has said, “I will never leave thee, nor for sake thee.”

Consider first the context in which this is spoken. The word ‘for’ goes back and shows us something of the context. That the promise dissuades us from covetousness. Did I read it all? I think I did. Let your conversation (and that conversation is a manner of life, if we were to translate it into modern parlance; we would say let your way of life, your manner of life) be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have, for, He hath said, “Those the Lord will never forsake and leave, need not love this present world, but may be truly content with such things as they presently have.”

We make God a liar by our anxious cares, by our fretful discontent. We call God a liar because we are saying, “He is not with us, He has forsaken us, He has forgotten us, He has failed us in some way, and He is absent.”

For He hath said. He who? God. God said what we don’t do is listen, listen, listen, listen to God’s Word. Hear what He says! This is our first failure. What more need He say that He’s already said? What more can He say than to you He hath said? What has He said? Well we should look at that, shouldn’t we? Remember who said it. As I remind you first of all remember the one who said it. It comes with what? The authority of God Himself.

You don’t need prophets and dreams and apostles. You’ve got God’s Word. We’ve had apostles, we’ve had prophets, and they’ve spoken to us the word of God. And we have it inscripturated, written down for the better preserving of it, and keeping of it, and reminding us and learning it.

Have you learned it? Have you heard it? “For He hath said.” What did He say? See we have a more sure word of testimony given to us in the Scripture, says Peter. “What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled,” says the poet.

So He hath said, but what has He said? Well, the statement is very clear, very short, maybe you remember it, and maybe you quote it. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. For He hath said, “I will never leave thee.”

Where has He said it? Well let me turn with you, because He said it in so many places it is impossible to give it to you from one place only. So I turn first to Genesis chapter 28 and verse 15, where we read: “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” So there He says it very plainly.

                                                    

Where else? Well we can turn then to Deuteronomy 31 verse 6 where we read these words, “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” There it is He hath said. We read this morning from the book of Joshua the Old Testament lesson, and I read now again the fifth verse of the first chapter of Joshua. “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” Perhaps the writer of Hebrews was thinking about this verse because it’s the closest, it’s the most full statement of all. But I think He may have had mine many places. He certainly didn’t limit Himself by His quotation to one place alone.

Should I read on? In first Chronicles 28 in verse 20 we read, “And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.”

And one more, then I will cease to read. Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 17. “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.”

Although spoken long ago to specific individuals, God says it now, today, again in Hebrews 13. All the way through the Old Testament, but also in the New. Hebrews 13 and verse 5. What hath God said? “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” It is His word to you. As we will see. Now the word ‘leave’ is a word that means to put away, “to loose.” I will never, as it were, “loose you from me.” I will never “release you from me.” “You are tied to me.”

I’m your God, you are my people. He will never withdraw Himself. He will abide with you forever. So our God is a Savior, A Redeemer, a deliverer. “Lo I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” To the end of the age. And Christ shall come again. Will He be with us? “Yes.”

Is His promise there? “Yes.” Is His promise good? “Yes.” Does He keep His promise? “Yes.”

God keeps His promise; He has always kept His promise. And this is His promise, that everyone and everything may leave you but He will never, and that is an emphatic expression. I want to speak to this. There are several double negatives in this Greek expression, “But He will never leave.”  He will never loose. He will never put away and He will never forsake. This is made up of two compound words in the Greek. Lacking in danger.

He will never withdraw His help and leave you in danger. He will never give over His power from you, and leave you defenseless, and without protection or provision. He will never withdraw His help, His protection, His defense, His provision and His power from you. All other help and all other helpers may fail you and they probably will. If they don’t they certainly could. But He will never forsake you. You will never be lacking help and strength and power in a place of danger. And again, it’s about as strong as the Greek could make it; it’s the strongest expression in all of the New Testament, in some ways. “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

I think the poet captured it. Five or maybe six negatives, it’s hard to find them, there are so many. Negatives are important because they are universal. A positive is not so universal as a negative is. And so He’s put it in the negative that we might know it’s a universal statement, it includes everything. “I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.” “The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I never, no never, no never forsake.”

And it says “thee.” I like the Authorized Version. It certainly does show us some things that other translations do not. It shows us whether the second person pronoun is singular or plural. In this case it is singular and it’s clear, “thee.” Every individual in particular. It’s a personal thing. You, personally, singularly. You, individually, “thee.” You may forsake Him, He will never forsake you, “thee.”

Now all the 12 apostles forsook Christ, even Peter forsook Him, cursed Him with an oath. Peter says, “Though everyone forsakes you I will never leave you or forsake you.” Oh yes he will; Peter is like other men, very weak. But Christ has never forsaken Peter; He has prayed for Peter, that his faith fail not. And though He denied his Lord, even with cursing, yet the Lord never forsook him.

You cannot perish when you are in Christ.

God’s own people have sometimes complained of being forsaken. Sometimes they have felt that. And expressed it, yes, in the Scriptures. But, perception is not reality. And God’s promise is the reality on which you and I depend. We do not depend upon our feelings, our perception of things, for they can be wrong and we may misunderstand. We often do misunderstand. We translate events in this world from the book of Providence in the wrong way. God’s promises are always true and never fail.

Let me read you where it says in Psalm 77 and verse seven, “Will the Lord cast off forever?” He’s feeling cast off. “And be favorable no more?” He’s feeling the Lord is not favorable. “Is His mercy clean gone forever? Doth His promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious, hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?”

The Psalmist was in a predicament. In this Psalm of Asaph, he was struggling with some very important things, some dire things in his own life, and his own situation. He’s begun to feel that God may have abandoned him and forsaken him, and turned His back upon him, and will never return and come back and save him.

Let’s look at Isaiah. What Isaiah says is quite revealing in the 49th chapter, verses 14 and following, “But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my LORD hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.”

So yes he does feel forsaken, but his feeling is not correct. Men do sometimes honestly have such feelings. And maybe you have them, maybe you have had them, maybe you have them even today. Maybe the Lord has given you over to some of these doubts; maybe He’s delivered you from some of them. We do sometimes perceive wrongly that God has forgotten, and we feel forsaken.

The church is mistaken when it thinks that way. Asaph was mistaken when he personally felt that way. But the church does feel that way sometimes. Maybe this congregation feels that way. Sometimes the congregation struggles. Sometimes we do struggle. But we should not give up; we should not abandon ship, as it were. We should not think that the reality is the perception. The reality is the promise that God has given. You may depend always upon what He hath said. And He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

Now I want to draw some lessons.

1.    Losses and crosses are no sign of God's absence or of His forsaking us. 

Losses and crosses are no sign God is absent or is forsaking us. Losses and crosses are a sign of what? Not of God’s abandoning us, but of His being a Father to us.

 “You have forgotten…,” isn’t that what Hebrews says? Chapter 12 and verse 5-7, “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is He whom the father chasteneth not?”

So losses and crosses and all these afflictions that we feel that we’re cast down by are a sign not of His disfavor, not of His abandoning us, not of His forsaking us, but of His love for us.

We are deceived. The devil’s done it, our own flesh has done it, and the world has certainly twisted it, so that we think God is against us when everything in circumstances seems to be against us. But it’s the very opposite. God has not forsaken His own but deals with you as with a son, in love, and you’ve forgotten that, says the writer to the Hebrews.

He is training you. He is correcting you. He is disciplining you; out of His love He chastens you. We have trouble on every side yet not distressed, perplexed says Paul, yet not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken. II Corinthians 4: 8- 9. So, losses and crosses are no sign of God's absence or of His forsaking us.

2. God gives a good end and result to all of the Christian’s trials.

I Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man:”

God does send temptations our way, “Lead us not into temptation.” We should be praying that prayer often, because sometimes God sees for good reason to bring temptation. “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

So God has a good purpose, a good end, a good result in mind, whenever He brings us into trials and temptations. And He will show us what it is eventually, if not immediately, He will eventually let you see what He is doing.

So losses and crosses are not a sign of God leaving us, God has a very good end in all the trials He gives us.

3. God will give back better than He takes.

He’ll give faith in place of wealth.

He’ll give heaven in the place of earth.

He’ll give faithfulness in the place of friends.

He’ll give us hope instead of a family.

Patience for pain.

A clear conscience for persecution.

Life instead of death.

He gives better than He takes. Does He take your life? The day will come when He will. The day will come when everyone of us, unless the Lord returns, everyone of us will fall into the grave. Some of us sooner. At my age it may be sooner, or it may be sooner for someone here. I don’t know what His timetable is. But His timetable is perfect and He will give you better than what He takes. Does He take from us? He sometimes seems to, but He does not do it without giving us something to replace, and it’s better than what He has taken.

4.  Christ was forsaken that you might never be forsaken.

Oh the horror of sin, the enormity of sin that would cause the eternal son of God such anguish as it caused Him, such dereliction as it brought upon Him. Such forsakenness as He suffered for our sin. Our sin caused Him who knew no sin to be forsaken by the Father; the son was constituted sin for us and was forsaken for us and our sins.

There was a great man whose name was Rabbi John Duncan. He was a lover of the Jews and he excelled in the Hebrew language and even taught Hebrew at Edinburgh, Scotland. And one day in class the students said that Rabbi Duncan, when caught up in an ecstasy said to the class, “What is Calvary? What is Calvary?” And he answered his own question, “It was Hell, and He took it lovingly.”

Forsaken by God, for our sins that we might not ever be forsaken. It was Hell, and He took it lovingly.

So we looked at what He has said, we’ve looked at some of the lessons from that statement of what He has said.

But when does He say this? It’s very important. When does He say, “I will never leave thee nor for sake thee?” Well He says it in Genesis 28:15. What is happening there? Why, it’s Jacob when he comes to salvation. He seems to come to some saving understanding of God, some deliverance by God. It was at Bethel.  God was in this place and Jacob saw the angels ascending and descending the ladder, as it were. We read of that in John chapter 1:51. “And He saith unto him, verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Angels ascending and descending the ladder as it were. We see that in John chapter 1 and verse 51. Should read that for you, you might see clearly what is going on. John chapter 1:51 says, “And He saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” So they will come to see that there is salvation and deliverance in Christ. They will see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man as Jacob saw salvation come at Bethel, the house of God.

So it is said when He brings us into the kingdom, when He first calls us to Himself, when He makes us His own people, when we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus and believe on Him.

I will never leave thee, He says, then, at the moment of salvation... But He says it whenever His people are claiming or possessing the promised blessings.

The second time was in Deut 31:6. Moses is speaking there of God’s promise to His church. In giving His people the land and providing for them the thing that He promised that they would walk into this land and possess it – it would be theirs because He would never leave them, He would never forsake them.

Thirdly, I read from Joshua 1:5. There Joshua was facing the enemy in the land. A great battle must be waged against the foes, against the Hittites, Jebusites, and all the people already in the land ready to stand against Israel. But the battle is not against God's people but for God's people. He is fighting for them and He always will. So God could say to Joshua I will never leave thee nor forsake thee and Joshua could rely upon that promise to fight the battles and conquer the enemy and possess the land.

And then we have that other statement in I Chron. 28:20 and that place when what was going on? Solomon was building the house of God. David did not build the house; he was a man of war. Solomon would be the one to build the house. And make a permanent dwelling place as it were for God, although God does not dwell in such places. But Heaven, He has given Himself to dwell in that particular location, in some special way we cannot fully understand. So when the church was being built, He gives this promise, I will not forsake thee, I will not leave thee.  He didn't promise us a flowery bed of ease; it would be hard work to build the church. A long process. It doesn't happen in a moment, and not in a day, sometimes it doesn't happen in a generation that the church is being built up. But it will be built for God has promised not to leave us nor forsake us.

And then at any time of affliction or a need or of sin, and what is the greatest sin in some ways? It is that great, grievous, dangerous, deadly sin of covetousness. But we can learn to be content by remembering that God’s promise is, never to leave, never to forsake, for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee -- thee, you, in particular.

Oh it is a wonderful thing and I will read once more Isaiah 41:17, “When the poor and needy seek water and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.”  Any time of need or affliction, the promise is good. So we cry to God for blessings and we want the blessings but what we need and what we should long for is Him!

I will never leave the, but He has promised the blessings as well. But they come with Himself. They come with the presence of the Lord who is with us and will never leave us and will never forsake us. Do we realize that they are always in Him, in Christ, in our Father?

He has to teach us this sometimes. This may be why He leads us at times into temptations. We should pray against such temptation, but it may be to teach us what we are otherwise oblivious to and do not seem to learn -- that He will never leave you, leave us; nor will He ever forsake us. That's where we learn it, in the crucible.

So let me ask you this day have you come to faith in Jesus Christ? Have you been joined in union with Him? Then He will never leave you, He will never forsake you. You may have a feeling of being forsaken but it's not true. His promise is the truth. He never lies. He is faithful to keep every promise He has ever made. And this is the greatest of all the promises for us, that He will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

He forsook His only begotten Son that you and I might not be forsaken. Do we deserve to be forsaken? I would say many times if we had gotten what we deserved we would have been forsaken. 

Do we deserve His presence? “No.”

How can I be sure He will never leave me? How can I be sure He will never forsake me? Look at Christ. Look to Christ, go to Him, go to Him in faith, and rely upon Him alone. Give yourself only to Him. For there is the evidence of all evidences that He has never left you and will never forsake you. For He forsook His only begotten Son that you and I might not be forsaken. He abandoned His Son that we might not be abandoned. So it is true, I will let never leave thee nor forsake thee.

If you have not come to Christ and leaned upon Him and “learned of Him”, you must do it now. Come, all who have not come before and all who have come before come again today to Him who never forsakes and never abandons because He was abandoned and forsaken that you and I might not be forsaken.

He will never cast you out. “All that the father giveth me shall come to me. And he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Come to the Lord Jesus who said, Lo I am with you alway, even to the end of the age.”

Let us stand for prayer.

Father in Heaven what a great truth! How little we seem to understand it or remember it, we forget so quickly. So may we this day return to the Lord or come for the first time and trust and give ourselves to Him wholly and to no other. For He will never leave, never forsake, He was abandoned that we might not be, abandoned. And it is so. For He hath said I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee. Confirm this to our souls that we might in faith rise and take the promise, take it with both hands as it were, take it as it were upon our lips.

Oh Father, there is none who trust in the Lord who will ever be forsaken, and we are grateful, and we give thanks and we rejoice, and our cup runneth over.

“What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows now in the presence of all His people.”

Lord teach us these things firmly, convince us and plant them in our hearts, that we might drink of Christ and receive of Him that assurance of the pardon of all the sins, and of His continuing victory over all such powers, for our sake and our salvation. In Jesus name we make these prayers. Amen.