Full Contentment

Hebrews 13: 5-8

The Reformer's Fire
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Exposition by Max A Forsythe

Question 80:
What is required in the tenth commandment?
Answer 80:
The tenth commandment requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor and all that is his.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville made a keen observation of all that was American when he visited the early Republic. Two of his insights come to mind as we prepare to focus on the requirements of the tenth commandment today. First, De Tocqueville observed that "America [was] great because America [was] good". This was said in comparison to the self-serving corruption of royal rule and the ongoing abuse of power in most of Europe. Second, he commented upon the constitutional limitations of any republican form of government with this prophecy. Whenever the electorate might finally learn that they could vote themselves privileges and benefits in imitation of the European royals, they too would be willing to tax themselves and their fellow neighbors into eventual ruin.

Certainly those were not his exact words, but the implication has been well realized in these last sixty years since the new dealism of Roosevelt and the "great society" of Lynden B. Johnson. In fact the major glut of Federal spending during most of my lifetime has been from the entitlement programs rammed through Congress in the sixties. Johnson, who was described by his biographer as the meanest skunk ever to inhabit the White House, was able to collect on every favor and political debt listed in his little black book from his many years in Congress.

At this late date, we live in a time where the politics of envy has been practiced as a high art form so that the electorate is divided and crass enough to vote for all their own best interests. And so long as their palms are greened on a regular basis, they care not how their loot is garnered! I would think that any average comedian could bring down a boisterous drunken house with a simple reading of the requirements in the tenth commandment! Now, in the midst of such a wicked and perverse generation, how can we listen to the commandment and apply it within the context of all the Joneses with whom we might want to keep up with?

Given the natural depravity of man, you must realize that the Lord may bless you with such a contentment if you are willing to learn from Him. A decade ago I learned a lesson that the Indian ruler Gandhi never realized. It was at the time when his life story was made into a movie. Either in the movie or an article about the "simple" ruler, I read that it cost the Indian government more money to allow him to live a life that gave the impression of poverty than if he had a normal presidential lifestyle.

That got me to thinking and as I began to evaluate my primitive means of farming and keeping ten acres productive I discovered that it really is cheaper to buy canned vegetables and livestock feed than to grow those completely yourself! Now, I do like to know the name of the beef in my freezer and who raised the pork because I trust the local packers more so than the corporate ones. But in general it really is not cost effective any more to be self-sufficient agriculturally. And of course, since I never owned any farm equipment - I never really was in the first place!

So, while our Amish neighbors in Ohio do live a simpler lifestyle - they really really have to hustle to maintain it. Their equine teams do indeed eat like the proverbial horse! And while the tractor does not breed, at least sixty per cent of the time it sits silently in the barn ready for the next season. I say this because so many people look back at simpler times and sometimes wish that like the computers in the year after next, that we too could experience 1900 all over again.

Did you ever thank the Lord that you were born in a time when daily living was really as easy as it is? Would you really like to warm yourselves twice to heat your home by cutting and splitting ten to twelve cords of wood every year? I remember when dad did that on a regular basis. All winter long we were usually only three to four days away from living in a cold house! He really had to stay handy with an axe and a saw. I think his all-time favorite invention was the chain saw he purchased in the late fifties!

Now don't get me wrong, those simple days down on the farm did have an upside! Unlike many of the other kids in school we couldn't afford the expensive cuts of meat. Bologna was and still is for me a special treat. Growing up on the farm meant that we had to put up with chicken, when a hen stopped laying, pork when the fall crop of piglets was butchered and T-bone, Sirloin and roasts of every sort. I still remember one of my brothers complaining about T-bone steak for the third time in ten days!

I learned about the real world when I went into the Army. I had to take a pay cut, but my clothing was provided as well as all my basic and necessary needs! I was even immunized to some point of medical perfection. In basic training, while I was standing in line for what seemed like the sixtieth shot I asked the Medical Corpsman if he had anything for lead poisoning. That he observed had to be left to the Almighty Himself! And if you were in the Regular Army in the sixties, that was a special blessing which we all learned to covet!

How many men in the combat of the two great world wars, and the half dozen or so small wars since have learned that lesson of contentment in the jungles, deserts and mountains at the far ends of the earth. "Lord, just bring me home again!" I was fortunate not to go to Southeast Asia, but in the last summer weeks of 1968 I thought for sure the Soviets were going to try and break through Bavaria to the Rhine. There I was not too far distant from the gap in the European mountains which our Corps and those of our allies would have to defend until our National Guard could be mobilized! "Just bring me home Lord", that was enough to make me content.

As my plane circled to land at the Vandalia airport north of Dayton, Ohio - I looked out the window and recognized my county from the air. My family was waiting in Dayton and I had almost circled over home on the way in to meet them. My military adventure was at long last over, I could start college and only had to drive down to Fort Knox for a couple hours of final paperwork.

In the same way, the Lord has prepared a home for us and only for a little while do we have to live on this earth and learn to be content with the life he has so graciously allowed us. Yes, there is the love of wealth that so infects our society - be thankful that the Lord has not given you enough that you could really really indulge yourself!

I have read of a government program called SSI - in this program the government gives money to alcoholics and other addictive types because they have no real hope of getting over their problems One of those who received a check because he was a run down worthless alcoholic who hadn't worked for years, went out and spent his money on more of the same. So much so that he poisoned himself and died. I know of students who had such a free ride in college that all of his education expenses were met and the government gave him a $600 monthly allowance besides. The one I heard about - never finished college because he believed he was owed a diploma and never went to class to earn it!

Being content with what you have is not so difficult when the Lord gives you the grace to accept it. But, we still have to deal with our attitude towards our neighbor. In a society where equality of opportunity has been changed to a society where equal outcome is almost mandatory, we can quickly covet the opportunities guaranteed to the depraved and deprived who will all the more less likely profit from the welfare investment! When ever you look at the grocery cart being paid for by food stamps, the patients who have a Medicaid card and the other assortments of privilege handed out in the name of government fairness, remember the God of heaven has given you ever so much more.

Look at the end of verse five in our Hebrews text today! Knowing that He will never leave nor forsake can give us the confidence to realize He is our help and that the government can never ever tax election and salvation. Further, if we depend upon Him instead of some government program, He will be here tomorrow as He has yesterday and on to forever. The government and its financial aid that we might envy? It could be gone tomorrow and where will all of those who trust in the Almighty dollar be then.

Even our currency sometimes points us in the right direction with the old politically incorrect observation: "In God We Trust". He it is that allows the green paper to retain some semblance of value. He it is that grants stability to the Republic when He is acknowledged and His people are given the freedom to worship and adore Him who is the real source of wealth, power and righteousness. Dare we insult Him by coveting anything else? The commandment would urge us to be content with Him and His Son Jesus Christ, who was crucified that we might have life eternal. May the Holy Spirit so encourage and empower us to be content with God alone.

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