The Old Testament reading, our first Old Testament reading, is Exodus chapter 20, verse 17. And this is the inerrant and infallible word of God. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

The other Old Testament reading for this morning is from 1 Kings chapter 21, 1 Kings chapter 21, a passage that we will consider this morning. And this is beginning at verse one and going to verse 16. So 1 Kings chapter 21, one through 16.

Now Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And after this, Ahab said to Naboth, give me your vineyard that I may have it for a vegetable garden because it is near to my house. And I will give you a better vineyard for it. Or if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money. But Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.

And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him. For he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. But Jezebel, his wife came to him and said to him, why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food? And he said to her, because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, give me your vineyard for money or else if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it. And he answered, I will not give you my vineyard.

And Jezebel his wife said to him, do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal. And she sent the letters to the elders and the leaders who lived with Naboth in his city. And she wrote in the letters, proclaim a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people and set two worthless men opposite him and let them bring a charge against him saying, you have cursed God and the king, then take him out and stone him to death.

And the men of his city, the elders and the leaders who lived in his city did as Jezebel had sent word to them. As it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, they proclaimed a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people. And the two worthless men came in and sat opposite him. And the worthless men brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth cursed God and the king. So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth has been stoned. He is dead.

As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money, for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And as soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it.

Our New Testament reading is Luke chapter 12, verses 13 through 21. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

And he told them a parable saying the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

As we look at the 10th commandment this morning, a good place for us to start is to ask the question, what does it mean to covet? The word in Hebrew that is translated covet means desire. And so to covet is to desire. And what the commandment specifically forbids is desiring something, some specific thing that belongs to someone else. And so covet or to covet may be defined in this way as one author has defined it: an intense and consuming desire to possess something that rightfully belongs to another.

Of course, that’s what the commandment explicitly forbids. The truth is we don’t really have to have a dictionary define coveting for us because we all understand it. We’ve all seen it in some ways. Sometimes we’ve seen it in others, but we’ve all certainly have experienced it ourselves. You’ve probably had the experience of seeing two children playing together in a nursery, and one has a toy and the other doesn’t. And they’re playing in a nursery that’s littered with toys all around the place. And guess which toy the child who doesn’t have one in his hand just has to have at that moment. He has to have the toy that’s being held by the other child. And he has to have that toy because it’s in the possession of the other kid. And he cries and is unhappy until he gets that toy.

And we might roll our eyes at that a bit when we see that in children, but sadly, you and I never really grow out of completely that way of thinking. And anytime we have been envious of another person because of something that they possess, something that they have, and we don’t, we are thinking, feeling in the same way. We are guilty of coveting. It may be the nice car that your neighbor drives or the spacious house of your friends. It may be the exciting vacations that others take. It may be the good looks of others, or their talents, or their seemingly perfect spouse, or their well-behaved kids, or their quote-unquote normal parents.

We’ve all wanted something that others have, something that belongs to another. And at the same time, we’ve all experienced that sense of dissatisfaction, of being disgruntled, unhappy with what God has given to us. And when we feel that sense of unhappiness, that envy, that jealousy, because we don’t have what others have, we are guilty of breaking the 10th commandment. We are coveting.

And the Bible has a lot to say about this sin of coveting. I don’t have time to go over everything that the scriptures say about it, but there is one passage in particular in the Old Testament that shows us how evil the sin of coveting really is, and that is the passage that we read from 1 Kings chapter 21, the story of King Ahab and Naboth.

Ahab, he was king over the northern kingdom of Israel, and he was one of the worst kings to reign over Israel that ever lived. If you’re familiar with the books of 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, you know that’s saying something to say that he was one of the worst kings. 1st Kings 17:30 sums up Ahab’s reign in this way, and so Ahab was a wicked king.

Now, he had a royal palace in the city called Jezreel. In fact, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what may have been that very palace that the scriptures refer to here in 1st Kings. We don’t know if it was his or not exactly, but in any case, there’s no question that the palace, the estate that Ahab had in Jezreel would have been one that would be befitting a king. It would have been large, it would have been luxurious and so on.

However, Ahab noticed that next to his royal palace there was a little vineyard there. And this vineyard was not his, it belonged to another man, a man named Naboth. And as King Ahab looked at Naboth’s vineyard, he thought to himself, wouldn’t this property make a splendid vegetable garden? And the more he thought about it, the more he envisioned this little piece of land, the more he could see in his mind’s eye the rows of the tomatoes and cucumbers and lettuce growing there, the more he wanted to have that property, the more he began to think, if I can just get my hands on this vineyard, my palace would be so much better. I would be so much happier. I’ve just got to have this land.

And so Ahab, he makes what no doubt he considered a deal too good to refuse. He makes a deal with Naboth, or at least he proposes a deal. He says, give me your vineyard. I will give you a better one in its place. Or if you’d rather have cash, I’ll pay you money for it. And we can imagine that Ahab just assumed that his generous offer would be gladly accepted by Naboth. And so in Ahab’s mind, as he’s making this offer, there’s no question that this little piece of land is about to be his. He’s already purchased his little packets of seeds. He’s already thinking about what plants he’s going to put where in the garden.

But to his great consternation, Naboth says, no. He refuses the king’s offer. He says, you can’t have my land. And in verse three, he says, the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. Now, no matter how generous this offer of Ahab may have been to Naboth, no matter how much pressure Naboth may have felt to do what the king of Israel wanted him to do, nevertheless, he righteously insisted on holding onto his land, and he did so because selling the land would have been going against the law of God. He could not sell his ancestral property. The righteous Naboth could not bring himself to do that because that would be a sin against God.

Now, if Ahab had cared at all about the law of God, which he didn’t, but if he had, he would have respected Naboth’s concerns. He would have found some place on his own property to plant his vegetable garden. But instead, Ahab goes away from that meeting, sulking and pouting. Verse four says, and he laid down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food.

Imagine this site, what a pathetic scene this is. Here is the king of Israel. He is the king. No doubt he has lands and servants and wealth at his disposal. And yet he’s miserable because he can’t get his mitts on this little plot of land so that he can plant his vegetable garden. King Ahab was acting no differently than that little boy in the nursery who cries and throws a fit because he can’t have the one toy that the other little boy has in his hands.

When Ahab’s wife Jezebel comes home, she sees just how unhappy and upset her husband was because he couldn’t have Naboth’s vineyard. And Jezebel, as you know from your own reading of scripture, she was not a good person. She was wicked. She was evil through and through, but perhaps she had one redeeming quality, and that was she wanted her husband to be happy. And so Jezebel tells Ahab, Honey, cheer up. Don’t be sad. I’ll see to it that you get that vegetable garden.

And then Jezebel carries out this elaborate scheme, a conspiracy really, in which false witnesses testify against Naboth. They say at a public gathering that Naboth has cursed God and the king. Of course, it’s a complete lie, but the result was is that Naboth was promptly stoned to death. And no sooner had the last stone been thrown that pounded the life out of Naboth that Ahab went down to his vineyard to make it his own so that he could have that little plot of land for his precious garden. And that’s how Ahab finally got the vineyard that he wanted.

And this is a very dark, very sordid episode, account from the history of Israel, but it does teach us some important lessons about coveting. First of all, we learn from this that coveting will lead, or it can lead, often does lead, to greater sin. Coveting will lead to greater sin. Listen to what James says. This is James chapter one, verses 14 and 15: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Consider James uses the language of conception and birth. Consider a baby who is conceived in the womb at the time of conception and the days following, the weeks following that little baby’s just a tiny, tiny little thing, but it doesn’t stay tiny. The baby grows, the baby develops, the baby gets bigger and stronger until he or she is ready to be born. And in the very same way, a covetous desire, it starts out as a tiny little thought in the heart, a new interest, a spark of desire. But then it grows from there until it gets bigger and stronger until it comes out or it is born a much greater, much more evil sin.

When King Ahab first noticed Naboth’s nice little plot of land, he started to think how great this would be for him to have as a vegetable garden. But in those initial thoughts that he had in that first instance of his thinking about this land, of deciding that he wants to have it and so on, he had no idea that that desire of his, that coveting of his, that it would eventually bring forth such great evil. The end result of that was murder, theft, false witness.

And so his sin began small enough. It began as a tantalizing thought, then a desire in his heart. Then that desire grew into an obsession. Then with the help of his wife, Jezebel, it developed into a plan. And then that plan brought about the murder of an innocent and righteous man. An evil action almost always begins its life as an evil desire. And so often that evil desire is coveting. It is coveting, wanting something that does not belong to you.

Now, thankfully, by the grace of God, this progression from evil desire, evil thoughts to evil action doesn’t always come to full fruition by God’s grace. However, the seeds of great evil are already there in the human hearts. In fact, it isn’t too hard to see those very same seeds of evil in our own hearts. Have you ever said to yourself, or have you ever began a sentence and saying to yourself with these words: if only, if only, if only I had a little more money, like my friend. If only I could afford a nicer house. If only I had a newer car.

Now, you may not turn to murder and theft to get those things, but so much outward evil begins with those same inward longings that we’ve all experienced by saying, if only. Ahab looked at that little piece of property. He said, if only, if only I could have this land. And that covetous desire, it grew, it bore fruit, and not only resulted in the wicked murder of Naboth, but it also resulted in the Lord’s judgment of death against Ahab and Jezebel. So much evil, so many terrible things came from that seed, that thought that began in the heart of Ahab. If only I could have this land.

And this is just one event in the history of Israel, however, we can say that this is essentially, this is one way we could characterize the entire story of human history. Virtually every evil that humanity has committed began with coveting. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They had everything that they could possibly want to be perfectly happy. They were righteous. They were holy. They had perfect communion with God. And yet they coveted. They coveted the status of God. They wanted to be like him. And so they sinned against him. And of course that started it all.

Think how different our world would be if no one was guilty of coveting. If no one was guilty of coveting, there would be no stealing. There would be no adultery. There would be no class warfare. There would be no politics of envy. Probably there would be no war at all. According to James, there would be no church conflicts. One author put it this way, you could describe the history of the human race of entire nations and families under the theme, you have coveted what belong to another. So much evil has been the fruit, has resulted from that seed of thought that began in the heart of man, that covetous desire to have what did not belong to him.

Now, when we say that coveting leads to greater sin, that’s not to say that as long as coveting is contained within your heart, that it’s not sinful or it’s not evil, it is a sin. Even if you manage to keep it bound up in your hearts, that’s exactly what the 10th commandment is saying. It’s not saying do not steal, that’s the 8th commandment. It’s not saying do not commit adultery, that’s the 7th commandment. But it’s saying do not entertain those thoughts which lead to stealing, which lead to adultery, and so on. Do not covet. So coveting itself is a sin and condemned by the 10th commandment.

And so coveting will lead to greater sin even if it doesn’t, it is sin in itself. But the second lesson that we learn from Ahab and Naboth is this, that even at the level of inward desire, even when we’re speaking of coveting just as it is in the heart, it itself has consequences. One thing that Ahab’s story shows us is that even before we take a step to act on a covetous desire, that desire itself, as it grows in our hearts, as it begins to overtake our thoughts and our emotions, it has negative consequences in our lives and in the lives of others.

You’ll notice that after Naboth refused Ahab’s offer to buy his land from him, verse four says, Ahab went into his house, vexed and sullen. So Ahab lay on his bed. He pouted. He felt sorry for himself. He wouldn’t talk to anybody. He wouldn’t eat any food. Now he hadn’t done anything yet to steal Naboth’s land. He hadn’t hatched a plan as far as we know. He hadn’t taken any action. And yet already this covetous desire that had grown so strong in his heart was changing his behavior.

One thing that the 10th commandment says is that you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. A married man may have such an infatuation with another woman that although he doesn’t actually commit adultery with her, though he may not act on that infatuation, that covetous desire, nevertheless, because his heart is no longer with his wife, he talks to her less, he begins to shut her out, his love grows cold, and soon their marriage is disintegrating. And that sin may have just been in his heart. And yet, although he hasn’t acted on it in any way, but because he hasn’t put that evil desire to death, the coveting has leaked out, as it were, and it’s damaging his wife, it’s damaging his marriage.

And so coveting has consequences, even if we don’t act on those sinful desires. And that is why as Christians, we must be so careful to guard the thoughts of our hearts. We must be so vigilant in not entertaining, not allowing, not nursing, not dwelling upon a covetous desire that we know to be wrong. Because even if we stop short of acting on that desire, because our heart is not right, because our heart is not where it should be with the Lord Jesus Christ, because of that covetous desire, we will fail to give ourselves in love and service to Christ and to others as we should.

Have you ever wanted something so badly that that was all that you could think about? You were obsessed. You were distracted. You couldn’t keep your focus on what you’re supposed to do. And maybe you actually hadn’t taken one positive step to getting what you wanted. And yet already that desire was changing you and it was changing you for the worse. And that’s why the Bible says we must guard our hearts. Proverbs 4:23, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” Jesus said in our New Testament reading, “Take care and be on guard, be on guard against all covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

The third thing that we learn about coveting from Ahab and Naboth is this, that coveting enslaves a person. When coveting rages in the heart unchecked, when it’s not put to death, when someone gives himself over to this passion, this desire, this coveting of something, he becomes a slave. He becomes a slave to his evil desires. And in 1 Kings chapter 21, we are not told explicitly that this is what happened to Ahab, but no doubt that’s what happened. You get the definite impression that if Jezebel had not come up with the scheme to steal Naboth’s land, that Ahab would have one way or the other come up with some kind of plan to take his land. He was the king, somehow he could have managed that.

But Ahab was completely under the control of his longing. He became a slave to his desire. And when you consider that in light of the purpose of the 10 commandments, you see that that enslavement, that bondage to sin is exactly the opposite of what God’s will was for his people when he gave them the 10 commandments. God gave his people this law that they would walk in the freedom which the Lord had just given to them by redeeming them, by rescuing them from the land of Egypt where they were in bondage to Pharaoh.

The Lord had just delivered Israel from Egypt, from the house of slavery, and he brought them into this covenant relationship with himself so that they could continue to enjoy that freedom of knowing the Lord, that they could continue to enjoy true liberty, true freedom, which consists of serving the Lord, knowing him, worshiping him. But they would only remain free as long as they walked according to God’s will, as long as they kept his commandments.

Nothing would bring the Israelites back into bondage more quickly than if they gave free reign to their evil desires. They would become slaves once more, not to Pharaoh, but to sin. And the same is true for us at the point that we surrender ourselves to our sinful desires, to our coveting, desiring what we don’t have. We have become slaves to those desires.

In Genesis chapter four, the Lord said to Cain, after Cain was envious of his brother Abel because God showed favor to Abel and to his offering, the Lord said to Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Like an evil beast about to attack someone, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, which means its desire is to have you, to rule over you, but you must rule over it. And this tells us something about the nature of coveting, that it will not be satisfied. It will not die until it has completely overtaken and overcome somebody and made that person a slave. And so coveting, unchecked, leads to bondage, leads to slavery.

The fourth lesson about coveting that we learn from Ahab and Naboth is this: coveting is a failure to be thankful for God’s provision. Again, we have to consider Ahab’s situation. He was the king of Israel. He had a palace, he had an estate, it was a royal estate. And yet he would not be a happy king until he had his hands on Naboth’s little piece of land.

And for you and me, isn’t it true that no matter how much we have, no matter how much God has blessed us with all that we need and more in this life, we always think that if we just had a little bit more, if we just had a little more money, if we just had this one more thing, then finally we’d be content, we’d be happy. The problem is, is that enough never seems to be enough. You have a perfectly good working phone in your pocket, but then when you find out that the latest phone has come out, all of a sudden that perfectly usable phone becomes inadequate. It seems so lame. You got to have the new phone.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been sitting in my office surrounded with all my books and I’ll get an email from a publisher about a new book that I’ve never heard of, by an author that I’ve never heard of, about a subject that I’m not particularly interested in at that time. And all the famous theologians and pastors are saying, you have to read this book, you must buy this book. And so all of a sudden, I feel like I just have to purchase this book, a book that I did not know that, you know, five minutes ago, I did not know even existed.

And so we are never satisfied with what we have. We always want a little bit more. The billionaire Nelson Rockefeller, he was asked by a reporter, how much money does it take to be happy? And his answer was, just a little bit more. I think we can all resonate with that. Just a little bit more and I’ll be set. Rockefeller, I don’t know if he knew it or not, but he was echoing what scripture says. Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income. This also is vanity.” What an irony that the one who loves money will never find true satisfaction in that thing that he loves because he’ll never have enough. He’ll always need more.

The opposite of coveting is contentment. Contentment means being thankful, being satisfied with what God has given you now, today. And this applies not just to what’s in your bank account, but it applies to everything that you possess. We need to be content with all that we have and all that we are. We need to be content with our looks. We need to be content with our bodies, with our intelligence, with our possessions. We need to be content with the family members that God has given to us.

Now, this is not to say that you should never or can never want to change your life circumstances. There are many desires that are good desires. There are many good things that we should desire. The desire, for example, to marry, the desire to have kids, the desire to move for a good reason, the desire to take another job that has more responsibility, more pay. These can be, and often are, these are good desires, holy desires. But for the Christian, even if he has these desires, he should be content for the time being with what the Lord has given him.

We ought not to be like those who are endlessly restless, always itching for something new, always looking for something different, always hoping that this one change in their life, this one addition, this one gain in their life will somehow make them happier, more fulfilled, more content. Our disposition should be that no matter how much or how little we have, we recognize that it has been given to us in the providence of God, by the hand of God. He has given us what he knows that we need to be happy and to be thankful, to be grateful for what we have right now. 1 Timothy 6:6 says, “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment.” And so coveting is a failure to be thankful for God’s provisions.

So Ahab’s bad example shows us a lot about coveting. And if we’re honest, we have to confess that we see ourselves in Ahab far too often. We think like him that if we can only have this one thing, if we can only get a little bit more, if we can only have this one change, finally we’ll be happy, we’ll be content. In my reading for the sermon, I came across this poem:

It was spring, but it was summer I wanted, the warm days and the great outdoors. It was summer, but it was fall I wanted, the colorful leaves and the cool dry air. It was fall, but it was winter I wanted, the beautiful snow and the joy of the holiday season. It was winter, but it was spring I wanted, the warmth and the blossoming of nature. I was a child, and it was adulthood I wanted, the freedom and the respect. I was 20, but it was 30 I wanted, to be mature and sophisticated. I was middle-aged, but it was 20 I wanted, the youth and the free spirit. I was retired, but it was middle-age I wanted, the presence of mind without limitations. My life was over, and I never got what I wanted.

When you and I come to the end of our lives, how do we avoid feeling this way? How do we avoid repeating the sentiment of this poem that my life is over and I never got what I wanted? How do we avoid looking back and realizing that we were never happy with who we were, with what we had?

What is the answer to coveting? Well, part of the answer to coveting is to learn to tune out all the voices out there that are telling us that we should be unhappy. Isn’t that what so much, isn’t that what advertising is all about? Isn’t that what advertisers are constantly telling us? We’re bombarded with ads all the time, telling us, shouting at us: You can’t be happy until you have this. You can’t really be fulfilled and content until you buy this.

Isn’t that one of the moral problems with gambling? It tempts us to seek our happiness in getting more money with no work or effort. Isn’t that the siren song of so many politicians? Vote for me and I’ll take what belongs to others and I’ll give it to you. We live in a world that does absolutely nothing to help us not to covet. We live in a world that encourages us, that feeds this covetous desire of our hearts.

Isn’t that why advertising is so successful? That’s why lotteries and casinos are always bringing in big money. This is why promises of wealth redistribution will always win a lot of votes. It’s because these appeals gain traction to what is true about us in our hearts. And that is we do covet. We want more. We want what belongs to others. We aren’t happy. We aren’t satisfied with what we have now.

Coveting is a sin that is endemic in the human condition. It is completely ingrained in the human heart. One theologian wrote this: ever since the fall, a voice has been whispering in every person’s ear that he should have been more than he was and he should have had more than he had. And this voice is a voice that comes from within. We tell ourselves, we convince ourselves, I should have been more, I should have had more.

So coveting is a heart problem. It is a problem of the heart. And so the answer to coveting is a new heart, a new heart. And this is the key. What you and I need is not a new heart that is free from all desire. Our aim is not to become like the Buddhist who has reached some kind of state of not feeling a desire for anything in this world. No, what we need is a heart that is filled with right desires, with holy desires, with what God desires.

And that’s what Jesus Christ came for, to give us in the gospel. He came to give us a new heart. Now, first of all, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, He came into the world in order to save us from our sin. God sent His Son into the world so that whoever comes to Him in faith, whoever turns from his sin and comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and entrusts himself to Him as his Lord and Savior, he will be saved. He will be delivered from sin and guilt forever and ever. And if you have not come to Jesus Christ as your savior, then come to him today. Put your trust and faith in the Lord Jesus, because he came to save us from all our sin, including the sin of coveting.

But he also came to give us a new heart, to make us new people, to give us new desires. And so God wants your heart to be filled with desire. God wants you to desire, to long, to be motivated, to have, but He wants it to be a righteous desire, a holy longing, a controlling motivation for one thing, and that is to grow in the knowledge and the love of His Son, Jesus Christ, to long for, to desire that communion with God through His Son, Jesus, to desire to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ, to desire to be made more like Jesus in joy and holiness and obedience.

Those are the kinds of desires that God wills to put on your heart. And when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, he not only forgives you, but he gives you that new heart so that you can desire what God would will you to desire. The Puritan Thomas Watson defined coveting in this way: an insatiable desire of getting the world. And if that is true, then the opposite of coveting is an insatiable desire of getting Christ.

And so this is the answer to coveting. By the grace of God, by coming to faith in Christ, by resting in him, you have right desires. And these right and holy desires and longings so fill your heart that they push out the evil desires of coveting. And when your heart is set on the things that God himself wills and desires to give you, then you can take to heart and know that this promise that the scripture gives us for you, the promise that is in Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Let’s pray.

The post Coveting and Contentment appeared first on Mt. Rose OPC.