The Foolishness of Building Bigger Barns

5 APRIL

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! Isaiah 5:8

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Zephaniah 1

The prophet now reproves that insatiable avarice and covetousness from which often arise acts of cheating, injustice, and violence.It is not entirely wrong for a person to add field to field and house to house, but so often the person who does so has the disposition of mind that is not satisfied once it is inflamed by the desire of gain.

Accordingly, Isaiah describes the feelings of those who never have enough, and whom wealth can never satisfy. So great is the keenness of covetous men that they want to possess everything. They want everything that is obtained by others, regarding it as something that has been taken from them. All the while they do not realize they need the assistance of others or that a men left alone can do nothing. Their only care is to scrape together as much as they can. They swallow up everything by their covetousness. 

Isaiah accuses covetous and ambitious men of such folly that they wish to have other men removed from the earth so they might possess it alone. They do not realize that if they were left alone, they cold not plow, or reap, or perform other offices indispensable to their subsistence, or supply themselves with the necessaries of life. For God has linked men so closely together that they need the assistance and labor of each other. No one but a madman would disdain other men as hurtful or useless to him. Ambitious men cannot enjoy their renown alone but amid a multitude. How blind, therefore, are those who wish to drive and chase away others so that they might reign alone!

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: 

Calvin makes clear the foolishness of insatiable covetousness. Why, then, do we find ourselves constantly moving in this direction? Let us look to the example of Christ and pray for strength to resist this temptation today.

365 Days With Calvin 

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke

Wanting More

16 January

 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Exodus 20:17

 SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 7:7-25

Though it was God's design to arouse men to sincerely obey the entire law, yet their hypocrisy and indifference were so great that it was necessary to stimulate them more sharply and to press them more closely, lest they seek subterfuge under pretence of the obscurity of the doctrine. For if men had only heard, "Thou shalt not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal," they might have supposed their duty was fully performed by mere outward observance of the law. It was necessary, then, that God should give a separate admonition to men so that they not only abstained from evil-doing but also obeyed what was previously commanded with the sincere affection of the heart.

Paul gathers from this commandment that the whole law is spiritual (Rom. 7:4, 14). He explains that God, by His condemnation of lust, sufficiently showed that He not only imposed obedience on our hands and feet but also put restraint upon our minds, lest they desire to do what is lawful.

Paul also confesses that once he slept in easy self-deceit but then was awakened by this single word of the law; for when he was considered blameless in the eyes of men, he was persuaded that he was righteous before God. He was once puffed up with confidence in his righteousness and expected salvation by his works, but, when he perceived the true meaning of the commandment Thou shalt not covet, he realized that the law was raised as it were to life, and Paul himself died because he was convinced he was a transgressor and saw the curse hanging above him.

John Calvin 

FOR MEDITATION: God demands conformity to his law in both our external actions and our internal thoughts. Many of us are careful to maintain an outwardly upright life, but we are just as diligent to cultivate holiness in our thoughts? Since we are unable to do that on our own, are we not in desperate need of a Savior?

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke