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CONNIE: “Greed is good!” We’ve all heard that catch phrase. But we’ve also heard some words from God about coveting—it’s called the Tenth Commandment. Who’s right—God or Gordon Gekko?

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. OK, Connie, you’re going to have to bring me up to speed here. I have to confess I don’t have a clue who Gordon Gekko is.

CONNIE: Well, our opening question is based on a catch phrase that really got people’s attention, and in a sense became the theme for those who wanted to criticize the overindulgent decade of the 90s. It came from a speech made by Michael Douglas, playing the role of greedmeister Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. He basically said that greed is what drives people, nations, countries to succeed—so why fight it? The world would be a better place if we’d just relax and “embrace our greed!”

LONNIE: Wow! That’s a bit different from the gospel we preach here at Voice of Prophecy, isn’t it? Jesus said “It is better to give than to receive!” And of course as we look at the Ten Commandments, we’re on number ten today—the capstone—and it says “Thou shalt not covet.”

CONNIE: Well, I think there are many good reasons to disagree with Gordon Gekko’s assessment of reality, and the people we have in the studio with us today represent one of those reasons. Don and Yvonne McClure illustrate the value of the Tenth Commandment by the way they live, but I think they can probably also share some insights into what happens to people who buy into the “greed is good” scenario.
LONNIE: Don and Yvonne McClure, thanks for being in our studio today.

YVONNE: Thank you for having us!

DON: It’s nice to be here in a little different way!

LONNIE: It’s nice to have Yvonne in person as well. We are talking about the Ten Commandments. You really lived on the side of the French cuffs and the Lincoln Continentals; you really had it all, didn’t you?

DON: I had it so well Lonnie that if it could be bought, I had enough money to buy it.

LONNIE: Things were so important to you!

DON: Oh, material things you had to have and especially if someone else had it, you wanted one better or bigger…

LONNIE: …and if your Lincoln went on the brink, you just get a new one?

DON: Yes, got a new one! I was making a lot of money! When I say a lot of money, that kind of cash today would still allow me to live a comfortable life. This was 30 years ago!

LONNIE: This is back when you were first getting acquainted with Yvonne, and you looked at him and saw the way that he was dressed…What did he wear?

YVONNE: He wore crocodile shoes and Louis Ross suits and leather and suede coats and Kashmir sweaters…

LONNIE: And suddenly you felt yourself feeling some unusual feelings…

YVONNE: I wanted some of that!

LONNIE: You’d never had money in your life, had you?

YVONNE: No! I was a minister’s daughter and we lived paycheck to paycheck.

LONNIE: And a hundred dollar bill was never heard of…Right?

YVONNE: No! I don’t think that I ever saw a one-hundred dollar bill. Then Don gave me a 500 dollar bill and told me that he couldn’t be with me this weekend for the holidays, so he told me to just take it and spend it, and I took it but soon realized that I didn’t know what to spend 500 dollars on. I had never had that much cash given to me at one time.

LONNIE: The concept of greed and wanting it all, ended up for you, leading you into some pretty difficult days of crime and doing time, right Don?

DON: Yeah, and money is…I think of ten pieces of silver…I had so much that I had no value on money, and when I lost the value on money I lost the value in myself. I had no priorities and fortunately the Bible had come into my life and meaning started to change. I had a great job and I mean great job! I was making 5 or 6 thousand dollars a month 30 years ago! That’s a lot of money! I quite a job and I’ll never forget the day I quit. God spoke to my spirit and I walked up to my boss and said, “I quit” and he thought that someone had offered me more money. I said, “No, God has offered me the cattle on a thousand hills”, and he knew what I meant, because he knew that I had been studying the Bible and he knew that I had been looking for a different life. He said, “Don, I’ll double what you’re making, I’ll give your more money, more cars, more things, more women, whatever! You live a lifestyle that you don’t even fit in to. I mean, here I am, a school dropout and I’m living the jet-set lifestyle and I’ve got it all, but there was a piece that I didn’t have. There was a love and a friend that I still lacked…So when I quit this job and walked away, the first thing the love in my life said, “Who now is going to pay?”

YVONNE: I asked him if he was sick and he said no! He was home from work early and he told me that he had quit. I asked him if he had another job to go to. Did someone else offer you a better job? He told me no!

DON: …God says that He will provide and He will provide if I do what? I have given my life to Him and now I can step out on faith. When we stepped out on faith, we had to dig into the Bible to make sure that we knew what we were following, but it was good!

LONNIE: Would it be correct to say that coming out of the lifestyle of the rich and famous, the Lord had impressed you that people’s needs are more important than your own?

DON: Yes! We have no money in the bank today, but we have wealth untold.

LONNIE: What has this done from your perspective of how it changed that person that you once knew, Yvonne?

YVONNE: He’s a totally, new and different person. He’s friendly and he’s just not the same person.

LONNIE: He doesn’t have crocodile shoes on today; in fact he doesn’t have any shoes on.

YVONNE: …He doesn’t worry…I can buy him a shirt for five dollars and he’ll happily wear it.

LONNIE: He’s happy?

YVONNE: He is happy!

LONNIE: And you’re fulfilled and you have peace!
DON: Amen!

YVONNE: And it doesn’t matter what anyone else has.

“All He Wants is You”, Christian Edition, from Bound for the Kingdom CD.

CONNIE: Amen! All God really wants is you—and you’re the only one who can give Him that gift. Thanks to Christian Edition for that song.

LONNIE: You now, friend, if God is greedy for anything, it is for souls to save in His kingdom. He wants so desperately to save us that He was willing to send His only Son to live on this earth and to die in our place to bring us forgiveness.

CONNIE: And when we receive this wonderful gift of salvation, it’s our privilege to pass it along to others by sharing the gospel and ministering to the needs of those who have not received Jesus as their Savior.

LONNIE: And that’s one of the great things about the ministry we’re highlighting today, the Someone Cares prison ministry. It’s something virtually anyone can do. It gives you an opportunity to reach out to people in desperate need—prisoners who often don’t receive any mail at all—and to share the goodness of God’s love in one-on-one correspondence with them.

CONNIE: And we want to emphasize also just how safe this is, because you send your mail to Someone Cares, and it goes from their post office box to the prisoner.

LONNIE: You can contact Someone Cares by calling them at (260) 492-7770. We’ll have further details on how you can become involved with this amazing ministry in a few moments. Of course you can also find this information in the transcript of today’s program posted at our website, vop.com.

CONNIE: But right now it’s time to listen as Pastor Lonnie shares today’s message, “Eyes Right!”

Eyes Right!

It’s one of the oddest pictures you’ll find in the Bible. A king of Israel—one of the richest and most powerful kings in the whole book—is lying on his bed with his face to the wall, sulking! In fact if you read between the lines in 1 King 21, you can almost picture him acting like a little child, kicking his legs and pounding his fists into his pillow as he throws his own private little pity party!

And what brought this on?

What has brought King Ahab—whom history tells us could muster an army with 2,000 horse-drawn chariots—to such a low point?

Well, he’s been out breaking the Tenth Commandment, that’s what. And it’s caused him pain that seems incurable.

The Tenth Commandment is intended to spare us pain, and breaking it always seems to cause problems. In fact, this commandment is the capstone of the second half of the Ten Commandments. It brings commandments 6 through 9 under its shadow, and protects us from falling into sin. In the words of Old Testament scholar David Noel Freedman, “If one can adhere to the tenth commandment, and not covet, then the chance of breaking commandments six through nine is eliminated.”

But somehow the importance of this commandment has escaped Ahab, and he’s paying the price. Here he is, enthroned in a fine ivory-lined palace atop a hill in Samaria, and he’s not happy. Why? Because he’s been looking around, and he’s noticed that his neighbor Naboth has a nice vineyard.

Now, I’m sure Ahab had plenty of vineyards in his royal estates. But the one Naboth owns is the fly in his soup. It disgusts him to see somebody else tending a non-royal vineyard just outside his bedroom window, and he’s decided it’s time to take the fly out of the soup. Surely a friendly visit with his commoner neighbor will solve the problem. So Ahab goes out visiting. Here’s the story from 1 Kings 1:21:

“Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth.’

But Naboth replied, ‘The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.’ So Ahab went home, sullen and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said, "I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers." He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat” (verses 2-4, NIV).

So here we have the proud king of Israel brought low by a common peasant who won’t part with the property God has given to his family.

If you remember the rest of the story, you know that Ahab’s wife Jezebel came up with a simple solution to the problem: Hire false witness to accuse Naboth of cursing God and king, hold a kangaroo court, condemn Naboth to death, and soon, poor king, you’ll have nothing to sulk about.

Ahab took his wife’s advice, and it worked like a charm! Soon Naboth had been condemned and stoned to death and Ahab’s workmen were able to go to work tearing out Naboth’s vineyard and planting broccoli in the king’s brand new vegetable garden!

But this was no permanent solution to Ahab’s problems with keeping the Tenth Commandment. Soon he was coveting something else. This time his ambitions grew beyond his neighbor’s hillside, and he began looking at a city in a neighboring kingdom’s land. Taking that away wouldn’t be quite so simple, of course. But Ahab was willing to die trying. (Which, by the way, is what he did, in a war with Syria.) In fact, his efforts to take away that particular piece of property led to his death on the battlefield, and another battle at the same locale a few years later led to Jezebel’s, so I guess you could say “what goes around comes around!” (You can read the story in 1 Kings 22, the very next chapter after the one that tells the story of Naboth’s vineyard.)

Coveting others’ property or lands or wives has never been a good idea—especially if you start taking actions based on your unlawful desires.

But let’s flash forward about 3,000 years now, to 21st century America. What if we were to consult our television window-on-the-world for wisdom about this issue? What would its advice be?

Tune in on a Thursday night in the fall, and you’ll be able to witness a flock of 20-somethings hurrying in and out of the shiny brass and plate-glass doors at Trump Towers, eyes all a-gah-gah as they ogle the opulence around them. Listen carefully to the theme song, and you’ll learn that life’s really all about “money money money money,” and read the text flashing on the screen, which will assure you that maybe you really can have it all, after all!

Sound familiar? Well, we don’t want to overuse references to The Apprentice and its hero, The Donald. But it seems to be a show that’s captured the imagination of millions of viewers, not to mention the thousands of would-be apprentices who apply every year to try out for the chance to work for Mr. Trump. With a competitive cast including Rhodes scholars, millionaires, and beauty queens, The Apprentice demonstrates week after week that no matter how much you have, there’s always room for covetousness! Always room for wanting more!

What is it about the human spirit that we’re always craving MORE? And is there a cure for the problem?

Friend, that’s where the Gospel comes in.

Sometimes we think that the Gospel is just the good news that God wants to save us in His eternal kingdom. But there’s more to it than that.

It’s why and how He went about accomplishing our salvation that really matters.

It’s found right here in the Bible, in the most famous text of all, John 3:16, “ ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’ ” (NKJV).

For God, life is all about giving, not getting. But by nature—human nature, that is—our lives seem to center around getting. And God wants to transform our natures to mold them into His image and likeness.

That’s what the gospel is really all about.

Sometimes people ask me, Pastor Lonnie, why do we need the 10 Commandments anymore? Since Jesus died on the cross, aren’t we saved by grace instead of by the law? Hasn’t the law been done away with?

And it’s a good question. One we’re going to be looking at in greater detail next week. But for me there’s a simple way of looking at this, and a simple answer to the question.

Yes, indeed, we are saved by grace through faith, not by the works of the law. But the question is, what are we saved from?

And one thing I know I need to be saved from is my own human nature. That acquisitive, greedy side of me that thrives on wanting and coveting. That part of me needs to be brought under control, and only the grace of God can do this.

Do you see how this works? Grace is the kindness of God by which He chooses to overlook my past sins and forgive me for them. But as that grace becomes active in my life, what effect do you suppose it has?

In his book Losing Moses on the Freeway, Chris Hedges tells the story of Foster Winans, who once wrote the “Heard on the Street” column for The Wall Street Journal. Winans earned a decent living for his work, but as author Hedges describes it, “He wrote about the deals orchestrated by financial power brokers who were raking in millions, often in ways that were unethical and unlawful. . . . He saw those making money dine in the city’s finest restaurants, navigate through traffic in limousines, fuel their long workdays with cocaine and flaunt the tailored suits, homes and vacations that come with massive wealth. The world he wrote about glittered before his eyes. It was alluring, unreachable and seductive. He resented the ease of their lives, while he struggled to pay rent. He wanted more.”

And the aching want in his heart finally drove him to doing unethical things himself. Things that landed him in jail. While in prison he had a conversion experience in which he came to terms with his conscience and the need to do right things simply because they’re the right thing to do.

It’s brought him some peace. And it’s definitely overcome his hankering for always having more. It’s led him to live his life graciously, tending to the needs of others instead of fueling the greed of those who already have too much.

When I think of the life of Jesus, that’s the lesson I get too, don’t you? Jesus was someone who had it all—literally. You know, when the devil took Jesus up on the high mountain and promised to give Him all the kingdoms of the world, he wasn’t offering anything that Jesus didn’t already own!

But Jesus laid it all aside to come down here to earth to serve the needs of the poor and downtrodden. To bring salvation to those who had no hope.

That’s the example He gave us, and I want my life to be more like Jesus’ life, don’t you? I want His grace to not only cover my sins, but to cover my life.

That’s why I so deeply admire Don and Yvonne McClure, whom we spoke with earlier in the broadcast. Here are two folks who could have been living the high life, but they’ve chosen to live their lives in service to others. And if you asked them, I don’t believe they’d say it’s because they’re afraid of breaking the Tenth Commandment. No. They’re not giving of themselves in order to avoid punishment. They’re giving of themselves because that’s how the grace of God works in their lives. Their eyes are fixed on those in need, rather than on their own needs.

That’s what the title of my message today refers to. I call the message “Eyes Right!” because, if we’re going to be able to really live by the spirit of the Tenth Commandment, we need to have our eyes fixed. … Fixed on the right things, that is. Jesus put it this way in the Sermon on the Mount: “ ‘The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!’ ” (Matthew 6:22-23, NKJV).

Light! Sunlight! I want it radiating into every part of my life, don’t you? Thank God for the Tenth Commandment that reminds me to set my eyes on the right things so God’s light can flood into my life!

“Living in the Sunlight”, King’s Heralds, from The King’s Herlads Collection #7 CD.