PURPOSE: To help listeners see how the arrangement of the commandments tells us something of the significance of the commandments.

Have you ever noticed how the first and last things you do can have great importance?

When comedians plan a routine, they have to think about how they'll start and how they'll end.

When you plan a party, how you get the party started is important (games, mixers) and how it ends.

When you're writing a story, how it begins is important and how it ends is particularly important.

I. The Ten Commandments are arranged in some order and it's interesting to look at the one that begins the Ten and the one that ends it.

The first command is "You shall have no other gods before me."

Does it surprise you that this is the first commandment? Why or why not?

The last commandment is "You shall not covet."

Does that surprise you? Do you think most people, if they were looking at the commandments, would say that this is the second most important of the commandments?

II. Covetousness is the only command that deals directly with our motives.

You might look at the other commands and limit them to acts, but you cannot look at this command and think of it merely as an action.

The command spells out all of the different things that you may covet. It is probable that at the end of that list, you could think of more, because covetousness can be a sin that we can do in virtually every area of human life.