“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”   (Heb 4:16 )

The Lord Jesus Himself solemnly warned us of this sin in Luke 12:15: "And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a men's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Now the sin that nobody admits is covetousness.

People just simply don't say "Well, I'm a covetous person. I want to get hold of that extra dollar. I want to reach out and grab and pull in everything I can get hold of." And people never come to you and say, "I want to admit something. Greediness is my problem. I'm just a covetous person." It has always amazed me just a little bit. People don't mind at all admitting some of those grosser, blacker sins; but when it comes right down to those refined sins like covetousness, I guess it is just too humiliating. Of course, it is a sin that's not condemned very much by our materialistic age, either. It is not even condemned very much by the church, it seems. You break any of the other commandments and immediately you get into trouble, but coveting - well, nobody knows whether you're coveting or not. But there it is - it is a commandment of the Lord, and it is one that most people seem to overlook; yet in God's sight it's one of the blackest of all sins because it's the root of every other sin. Remember what the apostle Paul said in Romans 7:7. He said, "I had not known sin ... except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." The point he was trying to get across was this: Every single sin has its roots in the sin of covetousness, and that's why God thought it was important enough to include in the Ten Commandments. It's the sin that comes before and leads to every other sin that you could possible commit.