Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

promoted out of the way. Events are known to have been accelerated, repressed,
blocked, or exploited. Decisions are known to have been hurried,
forced, undermined, or sabotaged. Actions are known to have been challenged,
prevented, misdirected, or subverted.
This may have been done ruthlessly, viciously, bluntly, subtly, skillfully
or smoothly. It may have looked like a hatchet job through character assassination
or otherwise. It may have come with a semblance of class in a pretended
magnanimity. It may have been done in the public arena, the church,
or the family, in politics, business, or education. The bottom line, however, is
always the same. The perpetrator seeks to end up with “clear sailing,” selfish
at best, and often destructive. More often than not they leave broken societies,
broken churches, broken families and broken homes in their wake, and ultimately
for what purpose? Wars have raged throughout the history of the
world for power, control, real estate, etc.
Ironically, even the perceived gain lacked substance and was fleeting at
best. One only needs to look at the 20 th Century with its two world wars, its
many regional wars, and its cold war to be fully persuaded of this. Hitler’s socalled
Thousand Year Empire was a pipedream, and the Soviet Empire is
gone. What energy wasted and blood spilled for nothing! In short, whether
“the ‘creative’ imaginations” of the boardroom and mission control center of
the human heart “are only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5) for lack of regeneration
(Gen. 6:5; Rom. 7:7), or in temporary control in the regenerate, the Tenth
Commandment has its work cut out for itself. In this scenario the sky of perversion
is, regrettably, the limit in humans who seek to manipulate themselves
into the ownership of what properly belongs to others or in God’s
providence should not belong to them.
At any rate, this explains what the sum and substance of “killing” or
“murder” is all about! It also explains why this “killing” goes on and on. One
can expect literally anything from an unregenerate heart. But the regenerate
heart can make terrible tumbles as well (Ps. 51:1). In this context “killing” is,
first of all, metaphorical, but then can also be very literal (Gen. 4:8; 2 Sam.
11:14-15; 1 Ki. 21:13; 1 Pet. 4:15; Jam. 5:6). The question, of course, arises
how it is possible that believers resort to murder, whether figurative or literal.
It is certainly mind-boggling. The next two points present us with the intermediate
steps to such outlandish conduct, a burning sinful desire and a lack of
godly prayer.
Second, “You burn with desire to have, and cannot obtain, so you fight
and war.” Sins always come in bunches. They seem to be strung together.
Open the door to one sin and others are sure to follow. Sinful covetings lead
to envy, selfish ambition, strife and warfare (Rom. 1:29) (So Manton, 335).
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