"Anchored to the Word
with the World on Its Heart "

Jewish men had to be at least twenty years old before they could go to war (Num 1:3), but David was a teenager, some think he was eighteen (for what reason I don’t know), when he was made a high-ranking officer in the Jewish army (18:5.) Clearly that was a notable exception to the rule. It’s not likely that he was made head of the whole army, but he was impressing a lot of people at his young age with his skills and his dedication to his people and his leader, Saul. Now, hold that thought for a moment.

Cancer is not something you catch as one would catch a cold or aids or chicken pox. Cancer is still largely an unknown entity to us. One day a cell in the body, a cell that up to that time was apparently just like all the other cells, as far as we know, starts wildly multiplying. It doesn’t grow in the normal fashion of cell duplication. It just goes off on its own duplicating wildly. The resulting uncontrollable mass than does its dirty work of destroying its host. Cancer is generally painless until it has started to do its often irreparable damage.

That is physical cancer. Most of us know it too well. The sound of the word coming to us in a diagnosis is frightening. The sound of it is so ominous that most doctors know better than to tell it to a patient over the telephone; they need to share that in a more personal, one on one, basis.

But are you aware that there is such a thing as cancer of the heart? Oh, yes! Of the heart’ There is a cancer that debilitates one’s character, that kills all joy from whatever source, and eventually saps the very life out of one’s spirit. It’s called envy, commonly listed as one of the seven deadly sins (anger, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.) Cancer can destroy the physical body, but It can’t touch the spirit of those who won’t let it. Unfortunately, envy, the cancer of the heart, will eat you alive and yet show no signs of physical disability. But it will kill the real you.

Envy makes us disparage everything.

Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. Better than most others, he studied the lives of emperors and other leaders. Tacitus said, “When men are full of envy, they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.” If one does something good, envy makes us question why he did it or how he got it done. Envy will always find some way to make a catty remark about what another has done. If they fail, we’re hard put to cover up our joy. If they succeed, the implication is that they did it in some illegal or other questionable way. Envy will do that.

Saul was one blessed leader. He had a fine young man of unquestioned character and devotion to him working for him. He took responsibility. He followed through on his work. He got the job Saul needed done, and what happens? Some women, in their traditional, cultural manner, sing this young man’s praises, and perhaps gloss it over a bit, and Saul goes crazy with envy. Instead of saying, “I’m thrilled to have a young man I can trust and believe in and one who will see to my best interests”, he says, “What’s next but the whole kingdom for this guy?”

Envy will take good and make bad out of it. Envy becomes nothing more than a row of hooks to hang grudges on. (John Watson Foster). Charles Colton said, “The envious praise only that which they can surpass; that which surpasses them they censure.” So it was with Saul.

Envy takes everything out of focus.

There’s an oriental proverb that says, “The hen of our neighbor looks like a goose to us.” If our neighbor has something we want, it looks so much nicer in his yard than it does in ours. Envy takes things out of focus. Are you a photography fan? Do you take many pictures? I dabble in it a little bit. I want you to know that there is little else that frustrates a photographer more than having the object of the picture out of focus. Even the newest self-focusing cameras will do it once in a while. You can’t adjust the machine you show them on to bring the slide back into focus. You can’t get the developer of the roll to put it in focus. If it’s out of focus when you take it, it will stay out of focus forever.

David was not Saul’s enemy. From every available source of information we have, David greatly admired Saul early on, and although he became afraid of him later, David never did anything to harm their relationship or harm Saul himself. In fact, it was just the opposite. David was Saul’s friend, but envy took that relationship out of focus. Saul couldn’t see clearly as a result. Isn’t that sad?

David and Jonathan, Saul’s son, were closer than David and any of his brothers ever were. Envy made Saul see even that as a challenge to his leadership. We do that. A person at work or in our profession gets a promotion or some other opportunity for advancement, and we resent it. We don’t generally mind other people doing well. We just don’t want them to do it before we do. Then the green-eyed monster goes to work, and the way we look at the other person changes. We see them as “opportunistic, ruthless,” or other words that we don’t find suitable for a worship service.

Phillip James Bailey said, “Envy’s a coal that comes hissing hot from hell.” It makes us do a lot of things out of focus. The scripture says, v. 9) “And Saul eyed David from that day on.” Everything in Saul’s life went out of focus. And it will happen to you and me too if we’re not very careful to deal with problem the minute it shows its face.

Envy has no pleasures.

Everything about envy is bad. Just like physical cancer, you can’t think of a single thing it’s good for or helps with. John Collins said, “Envy and fear are the only passions to which no pleasure is attached.” Think about that a minute. Infidelity may be a devastating sin, and it is, but at least it has some temporary dividends. The sin of over-indulgence cannot be said to be totally without some rewards. And on we could go. But there is nothing good that goes along with envy. Everything about it is bad.

John Chrysostom, the early day “golden mouthed” preacher of the fourth century, said, “As a moth gnaws a garment, so does envy consume a man.” It can eat you alive. Saul become gloomy, crafty and cruel. The more David did for the kingdom the more he was watched as a possible subversive. Envy didn’t help Saul solve a problem in the kingdom or in his own life. Everything just got worse.

Whenever I read about this subject or even this passage, some things come to my mind that I’d rather forget, and I don’t know why I’m confessing it to you, but maybe it’s because I’m hoping it will help you sometime. I’ve tried to learn from it. Here’s the problem.

When I was 19 years old, I was being considered for a large church with a major TV ministry. I was in evangelism, going to college full time, and serving three rural churches in the northern neck. The committee was interested but felt as though I had enough to do, so they called a friend of mine as Interim Pastor. It liked to have killed me. I wanted that job so badly and would have gladly traded all the rest of what I was doing to get it, but it didn’t happen.

Then something began to happen in my heart. I didn’t realize it at the time, but all of a sudden this friend of mine couldn’t do anything right in my mind. He was a good football player up until then. Now he didn’t play very well. He missed a lot of tackles, it seemed like to me that I hadn’t noticed before. He was a good preacher up until then. Now, it seemed to me, that his sermons were a little sloppier than they used to be, not as well though through. He had a pleasant and captivating personality up until then. Now he was a bore and a “goody two shoes.” We had been fairly close friends up until then. Now he seemed like an opportunist who took my dream away from me. I just couldn’t figure out what went wrong with him. I promise you I didn’t think envy was the problem, but it was.

Has that ever happened to you? And furthermore, is it that much of a big deal? Oh, yes it is! Oh, yes it is! Why? Because much of our culture and our economic system is based on cultivating envy, enlarging that desire to have what other people have.

Our economic system depends for its success on envy. If people only bought what they needed, or what they want, without external persuasion, the economy would collapse in a week. If you doubt that, take a look this afternoon at the Super Bowl where the ads are far more important than the game. Businesses have lined up to pay $3.5 million for a 30- second ad. Thirty seconds! And among that distinguished group is Sheltering Arms Hospital in Mechanicsville. That's why the key industry in maintaining the U.S. economy is the advertising business. Marshall McLuhan, who is considered by many to be the first father and leading prophet of the electronic age, says in his widely read book, Understanding Media, that "far more thought and care go into the composition of any prominent ad in a newspaper or magazine than go into writing of the features and editorials.”

It’s extremely important to our economic existence than we keep people envious of what others have.

Envy is a cancer that can eat the heart out of us if we’re not alert to its destructiveness. Constantine, rated as generally an efficient and good ruler by most historians, after he secured the position of Roman Emperor, became envious and cruel. In A.D. 326 he was so troubled, so envious of the success of his son Crispus, of whom it was said that he had accomplished "magnificent deeds," envious of him and so suspicious of his talented nephew Licinius that he had both of them executed. Both of them.

Unfortunately, this Constantine claimed to be a Christian, and in fact in 313 A.D. made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. For Christianity, unfortunately, things started to go downhill after that.

Young Saul was impressive, standing head and shoulders above his countrymen. Tall. Handsome. Strong. Modest. Every inch a king. At the mere sight of him the assembled nation cheered. He started out well. One after another he fought down his enemies. Then, at the height of his popularity and power, he tried to reckon without his God, and his house came down on his head. To end it all he leaped on his own sword. The Philistines cut off his head and hanged his body on their city wall. A boy with a slingshot and a pebble got his kingdom. And what can we learn from this?

Out of life’s lessons, one thing is very clear: "One cannot be envious and happy at the same time." The Scriptural antidote to envy is the Tenth Commandment: "You shall not covet..." The Bible doesn't say that it's wrong to have as much money as someone else or even to want the same things your neighbor has. The sin is when the desire to possess certain things warps your relationship with your neighbor, destroys your self-control, and keeps you from fulfilling your God-given potential.

1 Corinthians 13:4 says it well: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy….” Maybe Proverbs 14:30 says it best: “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”

A sermon by Dr. Fred R. Skaggs
Preached at County Line Baptist Church
Ruther Glen, VA 2/5/12

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