Exercise Alone Can't Cure a Heart Defect: The Ninth and Tenth Commandments
Type of Event: Worship Service: Sermon only
Date Recorded: 12 Nov, 2006
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 
Topics: Regeneration / Spiritual Growth
Description: "'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'" (Exodus 20:17)
The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we're still doomed.
We have already learned in the past eight weeks of studying the Commandments that there is not only natural murder, but spiritual, as well. We are to shun both. The problem is, spiritual murder actually feels good to us at times. How is this a spiritual form of coveting?
Consider how coveting--longing to possess something that belongs to someone else--is like stealing in one's own heart. When we covet something, we haven't actually stolen it, but there's a part of us that wants to. This is how eventually all natural thefts, murders, false witnesses and acts of adultery come about. First comes the covetous desire, then comes the destructive act. So spiritual murder--attacking a person in your own heart--begins with the evil desire to do so.
Now here's the frightening part of this teaching: satisfying our heart's desires gives us pleasure. That means that there's a dark part of us that feels good when we break a commandment, whether spiritually or naturally. The sin of adultery provides a powerful illustration of this.
Everyone knows that physically committing adultery involves physical pleasure. That's a big part of the attraction of adultery.
So our will rules over our intellect. Our will is our spiritual heart, and just like a natural heart, we can't directly control it. We can hold our breath but we can't hold our pulse from beating. Only the Lord can help us. For Him to do this, though, we have to freely decide on our own that we want Him to. We do this by repenting--or turning away from--evil impulses as they come to us, by praying to Him to ask Him for a clean heart, and by shunning--literally "fleeing"--evil when it presents itself within us.
This is what the Lord meant when He said that, if our right eye or hand causes us to stumble, we should pluck it out and cut it off. He also said that it isn't what goes into the mouth but what comes out from the heart that makes a person unclean, meaning that it isn't our intellect that makes us evil, but our will. This is because love of self, along with its subordinate love of the world, warp our rational thinking, making whatever justifies our evil desires appear to be truth, and whatever satisfies them to feel good.
Our hearts are corrupted by selfishness and greed, and full of murder, adultery, theft and deceit. So go back to the beginning of the Commandments., acknowledge the false god is you, and pray to the Lord for a new heart, and over time He will miraculously transform your life.
To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, Mark 7:1-23, and True Christian Religion 325-328, then listen to the full audio of the sermon, and finally put it into practice for a week.
This is the second-to-last sermon in the Journey / Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments, preached at Pittsburgh New Church, this time addressing the ninth and tenth commandments. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and www.NewChurch.org.
References: Exodus 20:17; Luke 12:13-21; Mark 7:1-23; True Christian Religion 325, 326, 327, 328; Matthew 5:29-30; Arcana Coelestia 8910:2; Divine Providence 232
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