SIN-INDWELLING
The flesh
hates everything about God. Since it
resists everything about God, it resists every way we try to taste Him and know
Him and love Him. And the more something
enables us to find God and feast on Him, the more violently the flesh fights
against it. It takes its battle to every
quarter of the soul: When the mind wants
to know God, the flesh imposes ignorance, darkness, error and trivial thoughts. The will can't move toward God without
feeling the weight of stubbornness holding it back. And the affections, longing to long for God,
are constantly fighting the infection of sensuality or the disease of
indifference.
The Enemy Within, P&R Publishing, 1998,
p. 48. Used by Permission.
Your flesh
will whisper to you that strictness and anxious care about obedience are
legalism – the gospel came to deliver you from such things! And besides, if you really do commit a sin,
you can be forgiven later.
Kris Lundgaard
The Enemy Within, 1998, P&R Publishing,
p. 65. Used by Permission.
You can feel
the hostility of the flesh whenever you approach God – it makes real love for
Him into work: Digging around the Bible to find a juicy new insight to impress
your small group is like sailing the Caribbean, but poring over the Scriptures
to find the Lover of your soul is like skiing up Mount Everest. Conjuring up a happy mood with some music you
don’t even know the words to is like solving 2 + 2
with a calculator. But savoring the
glory of Christ and His tender love until your heart is softened toward Him is
like using mental math to calculate pi to the thousandth place. And giving a birthday present to your best
friend is like forcing down some double-fudge brownies. But giving up your extra bedroom to a homeless
person in the name of Jesus is like eating the Rockies for breakfast.
Kris Lundgaard
The Enemy Within, P&R Publishing, 1998,
p. 47. Used by Permission.
But every
last drop of poison is poison; every spark of fire is fire; and the last bit of
flesh that remains in the believer is still enmity. When God’s grace changes our nature, it
doesn’t change the nature of the flesh. It conquers it, weakens it, mortally
wounds it, so that we are no longer Captain Ahabs by
nature; yet his defiant malice smolders in our flesh. By the time Paul wrote Romans, he must have
been as Christlike as anyone can expect to be on this side of heaven, and he
surely spend his days putting his flesh to death. Still he cried out for deliverance from this
irreconcilable enemy (Rom. 7:24).
Kris Lundgaard
The Enemy Within, P&R Publishing, 1998,
p. 45. Used by Permission.
We must learn
where our personal weaknesses lie. Once they are identified, we must be
ruthless in dealing with them. Earlier generations called this the “mortification
of the flesh,” that is, pronouncing the death sentence upon sin and putting
that sentence into daily effect by killing all that sets itself against God’s
purpose in our lives.
Alistair Begg
Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 33.
How to
overcome the flesh:
1.
Be
honest about the presence and nature of sin continuing in your life. Paul was.
In Colossians 3:5-9 he recognizes that the seeds of sexual immorality,
impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language
and lying, may remain in true Christians and plague their lives.
2.
See
the sin which continues to indwell you not in the light of your perspective but
in the light of God’s judgment. Any and all sin merits His wrath.
3.
Remember
who you are as a Christian. You have been crucified, buried and raised with
Christ (Col. 3:1-3). Consequently you are no longer under the reign and rule of
sin (Rom. 6:14,18). Now you must set your mind on
Christ and on His reign in your life, and express your new identity in Christ
by a life of holiness.
4.
Refuse
sin. Do not compromise with it; rather, put it to death (Col. 3:5).
5.
Fill
your life with Christ-like characteristics. (“Put on compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience”, Col. 3:12). In this way you will leave less
and less room for sinful ones (v. 12-17).
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Healthy Christian Growth, by Permission of the Banner of
Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. 1991, p. 20-21.
The best prayer
I ever prayed had enough sin to damn the whole world.
John Bunyan
Once
regenerated, we are delivered from the penalty of sin and from the authoritative
power of sin, but not from the continued presence and influence of sin. Sin is
no longer reigning, but it is remaining.
C.J Mahaney
Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and
Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem and Dennis Rainey, Crossway, 2002, p. 196.
On the whole,
the popular Christian literature I have reviewed locates the source of our
problems far more readily in one’s parents, one’s past, and one’s pain than in
one’s pervasive depravity. Unless you
have a firm grounding in biblical teaching, these materials will surely
convince you that low self-esteem and unmet needs are the problem, not
indwelling sin.
C.J Mahaney
Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and
Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem and Dennis Rainey, Crossway, 2002, p. 195.
Often our
misunderstanding of God's Word is due not to innocent intellectual slips or
lack of information, but rather to a deep refusal to submit to God's
demands. A person who intends to manage
his own affairs, maintain his pride, and secure esteem and glory from his
fellow human beings will twist the words of Jesus to support his own
self-esteem. The evil of the human heart
precedes and gives rise to many of our apparently intellectual
misunderstandings of Scripture.
Desiring God, p. 279, copyright Bethlehem Baptist Church, used by
permission. www.DesiringGod.org.
The saints
are sinners still. Our best tears need to be wept over, the strongest faith is
mixed with unbelief, our most flaming love is cold compared with what Jesus
deserves, and our intensest zeal still lacks the full
fervor which the bleeding wounds and pierced heart of the crucified might claim
at our hands. Our best things need a sin offering, or they would condemn us.
C.H. Spurgeon
Our prayers
have stains in them, our faith is mixed with unbelief, our repentance is not so tender as it should be, our communion is distant and
interrupted. We cannot pray without sinning,
and there is filth even in our tears.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermons, 11.135.
You
will find indwelling sin frequently retarding you the most, when you are most
earnest. When you desire to be most alive to God – you will generally find sin
most alive to repel you.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
We
must not trust our heart at any time; even when it speaks most fair, we must
call it liar; and when it pretends to the most good, still we must remember its
nature, for it is evil, and that continually.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
When
a man is saved by divine grace, he is not wholly cleansed from the corruption
of his heart. When we believe in Jesus Christ all our sins are pardoned; yet
the power of sin, albeit that it is weakened and kept under by the dominion of
the new-born nature which God doth infuse into our souls, doth not cease, but
still tarrieth in us, and will do so to our dying
day.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
I
could fight the devil; I could overcome every sin that ever tempted me, if it
were not that I had an enemy within. Those Diabolians
within do more service to Satan than all the Diabolians
without. As Bunyan says in his Holy War, the enemy tried to get some of his
friends within the City of Mansoul, and he found his
darlings inside the walls did him far more good than all those without. Ah!
Christians, thou couldst laugh at thine enemy, if
thou hadst not thine evil
heart within; but remember, thine heart keeps the
keys, because out of it are the issues of life. And sin is there. The worst
thing thou has to fear is the treachery of thine own heart.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
Christian,
remember how many backers thy evil nature has. As for thy gracious life, it
finds few friends beneath the sky; but thine original
sin hath allies in every quarter. It looks down to hell, and it finds them
there, demons ready to let slip the dogs of hell upon thy soul. It looks out
into the world, and sees “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the
pride of life.” It looks around, and it seeth all
kinds of men, seeking, if it be possible, to lead the Christian from his
steadfastness. It looks into the Church, and it finds all manner of false
doctrine ready to inflame lust, and guide the soul from the sincerity of its
faith. It looks to the body, and it finds head, and hand, and foot, and all
other members ready to be subservient to sin. I could overcome my evil heart if
it had not such a mighty host of allies, but it makes my position doubly
dangerous, to have foes without the gates, in league and amity with a foe more
vile within.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
There
is one thing which seldom gets weaker through old age – that is, old Adam; he
is as strong in his old age as he is in his young age, just as able to lead us
astray when our head is covered with grey hairs, as he was in our youth. We
have heard it said that growing in grace will make our corruptions less mighty;
but I have seen many of God’s aged saints, and asked them the question, and
they have said, “No,” their lusts have been essentially as strong, when they
have been many years in their Master’s service, as they were at first, although
more subdued by the new principle within. So far from becoming weaker, it is my
firm belief that sin increases in power.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin, Sermon
from Job 40:3-4.
The human
heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood
lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.
John Calvin
A Calvin Treasury.
Christianity Today, v. 37, n. 4.
No one knows
the one-hundredth part of the sin that clings to his soul.
John Calvin
I am more afraid of my own heart than
of the pope and all his cardinals.
Martin Luther
To fight against sin is to fight
against the devil, the world and oneself. The fight against oneself is the
worst fight of all.
Martin Luther
The choicest
believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet
to make it their business all their days to [put to death] the indwelling power
of sin.
John Owen
Temptation and Sin.
The Christian
life is a war, and the fiercest battles are those that rage within the heart of
every believer. The new birth radically and permanently changes a person’s
sinful nature, but it does not immediately liberate that nature for all of the
remnants of sin. Birth is followed by growth, and that growth involves warfare.
Tom
Ascol
The War Inside, Tabletalk, April, 2009, p.
27. Used by Permission.
It is always self who gets irritable and envious and resentful and
critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its attitudes to
others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and reserved.
Roy Hession
The Calvary Road, Christian Literature Crusade, 1950,
p. 22. P.O. Box 1449, Fort Washington, PA 19034-8449. Used by Permission.
Anything that
springs from self, however small it may be, is sin.
Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin. Self-pity in trials or
difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence in
one's spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and self-defense when
we are hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness, reserve, worry, fear, all
spring from self and all are sin.
Roy Hession
The Calvary Road, Christian Literature Crusade, 1950,
p. 29. P.O. Box 1449, Fort Washington, PA 19034-8449. Used by Permission.
Sin is not
merely wrong acts and thoughts, but sinfulness as well, an inherent inner
disposition inclining us to wrong acts and thoughts. We are not simply sinners
because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.
Millard Erickson
Christian Theology, Baker, 1998, p. 596.
Indwelling
sin remains in us even though it has been dethroned. And though it has been
overthrown and weakened, its nature has not changed. Sin is still hostile to
God and cannot submit to His law (Romans 8:7). Thus we have an implacable enemy
of righteousness right in our own hearts. What diligence and watchfulness is
required of us when this enemy in our souls is ready to oppose every effort to
do good!
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 60-61. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
It
is our own evil desires that lead us into temptation. We may think we merely
respond to outward temptations that are presented to us. But the truth is, our
evil desires are constantly searching out temptations to satisfy their
insatiable lusts (James 1:14).
Jerry Bridges
Copied
from The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, © 1996, p. 63-64. Used by
permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
Prayer is the
humble first step in the battle against our indwelling sin. It says, “I am
taking sin seriously, I cannot do this on my own, and I need the help of God.”
When we pray for greater conviction of sin, God will give it to us, and we will
be motivated to wage war against it.
Karl Graustein
Growing Up Christian, P&R, 2005, p. 187. Used by Permission.
Although sin
no longer rules us, we still are naturally sinful. God considers us righteous
and credits us with the spotless record of Christ, but we still do sin. In
fact, the battle with our indwelling sin starts at our conversion. Through
justification we are declared righteous, and it is at this point that our
sanctification – our growing in holiness – begins.
Karl Graustein
Growing Up Christian, P&R, 2005, p. 181. Used by Permission.
Nothing is
easier than sinning.
Martin Luther
The Early Years, Christian History, n.
34.
We have
within us a self that has its poison from Satan – from hell – and yet we
cherish and nourish it. What do we not do to please self and nourish self – and
we make the devil within us strong… Look at your own life. What are the works
of hell? They are chiefly these three: self-will, self-trust, and
self-exaltation.
Andrew Murray
The Spiritual Life.
Christianity Today, v. 33, n. 2.
“Sinner” is a
present-tense description of everyone, including those who have put their faith
in Christ. Of course, those who have called Jesus “Lord” are justified, meaning
that they are no longer guilty. Also, they have been given the Spirit, which
makes them slaves to Christ rather than to sin. But we all are sinners.
Perfection awaits eternity.
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 150. Used by Permission.
With such
adversaries, growing in the fear of the Lord will not be a smooth process.
Instead, it will be the path of warfare. We must hate the evil and ungodly
assumptions of the world, we must hate our own sinful
nature, and we must hate Satan. To
accomplish these tasks demands the most powerful resources we have: The Word,
the Spirit, and the body of Christ.
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 101. Used by Permission.
[The flesh]
knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is
ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.
C.S. Lewis
St. Augustine
teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses
and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and
reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often
excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.
Blaise Pascal
[Our flesh]
indicates that the essential way in which people are rebelling against God is
that they are assuming that, like Him, they can make the decisions necessary
for enjoying a fulfilled and happy future.
The folly of this rebellion is that people think that they love
themselves more, are wiser, and thus better able than the all-loving,
omniscient, omnipotent God to provide for themselves
the fulfillment they crave. Thus
conversion, according to Jesus, reverses the act of the Fall
and makes a declaration, not of independence from God, but dependence on Him.
Daniel Fuller
The Unity of the Bible, Zondervan Publishing
House, 1992.
The
Believer’s Warfare: Internal, with the flesh- Gal. 5:17; Not after the flesh- 2
Cor. 10:3; with the armor of light- Rom. 13:12; external, with the world- John
16:33; not by resistance but submission- James 4:7; with the armor of
righteousness- 2 Cor. 6:7; infernal, with the devil- Eph.6:12; with the whole
armor of God- Eph. 6:13
Author Unknown
The Book of 750 Bible and Gospel
Studies, 1909, George W. Noble, Chicago.
Christian
baptism does not drown the flesh.
Author Unknown
Those who are
pleasing to God testify with the penitent tax-collector in the Temple: “God, be
merciful to me, the sinner!” (Luke 18:13). Augustine pleaded, “Lord, save me from
that wicked man, myself.” John Knox, perhaps the greatest preacher in the
history of Scotland, confessed, “In youth, in middle age and now after many
battles, I find nothing in me but corruption.” John Wesley wrote, “I am fallen
short of the glory of God, my whole heart is altogether corrupt and abominable,
and consequently my whole life being an evil tree cannot bring forth good
fruit.” His brother Charles, who penned so many great hymns, confessed, “Vile
and full of sin I am.” Augustus Toplady, who wrote
the beloved hymn “Rock of Ages,” said of himself, “Oh, that such a wretch as I
should ever be tempted to think highly of himself. I
am myself nothing but sin and weakness, in whose flesh naturally dwells no good
thing.”
John MacArthur
Taken
from Matthew 8-15, by John MacArthur, Moody Publishers, © 1985, p. 58.
I cannot
pray, except I sin; I cannot preach, but I sin; I cannot administer or receive
the holy sacrament, but I sin. My very
repentance needs to be repented of; and the tears I shed need washing in the
blood of Christ.
William Beveridge
We still have the presence of sin, nay, the stirrings and
workings of corruptions. These make us to have many a sad heart and wet eye.
Yet Christ has thus far freed us from sin; it shall not have dominion. There
may be the turbulence, but not the prevalence of sin. There may be the
stirrings of corruption. It was said of Carthage that Rome was more troubled
with it when half destroyed than when whole. So a godly man may be more
troubled with sin when it is conquered than when it reigned.
Sin will still work, but it is checked in its workings. They are rather
workings for life than from life. They are not such uncontrolled workings as
formerly. Sin is under command. Indeed, it may get advantage, and may have a
tyranny in the soul, but it will never more be sovereign. I say, it may get
into the throne of the heart and play the tyrant in this or that particular act
of sin, but shall never more be as a king there. Its reign is over; you will
never yield a voluntary obedience to sin. Sin is conquered, though it still has
a being within you.
Samuel Bolton
The True Bounds of Christian Freedom.
Jesus teaches us that there is
something far more fundamental to our sinfulness than the actual sins we
commit. Our sins do not make us sinful. Rather, we commit sins because at the
very center of our lives, we are sinful. Sin has invaded the inner recesses of
our personalities.
Tom Ascol
The Heart of the Problem, Tabletalk, June
2008, p. 57, Used by Permission.
Satan can
never undo a man without himself; but a man may easily undo himself without
Satan.
Thomas Brooks
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 292.
Temptation almost
always begins in the flesh (James 1:14). Our flesh sets fire to sin. Satan
simply fans the flames. Satan is powerless until we first say “yes” to sin. He
exploits our sinful decisions, most often by intensifying the course of action
we have already chosen (Eph. 4:26-27).
Sam Storms
Tactics of Temptation, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Our Western
worldview gets involved here once again. We have a strong tendency to want to
analyze everything and place the parts in neat, mutually exclusive categories. So
we ask questions like, How do I know whether it is the world, the flesh, or the
devil? My response is that most situations will involve some of each element to
some extent… (They) are treated as working together so closely that you cannot
talk about one without talking about the other. The flesh is the earthly
qualities about which enable us to respond to the temptation. The world is the
milieu in which we live and which is under the control of "the ruler of
the kingdom of the air." Satan and his demons know what fleshly parts of
us are especially vulnerable, and they use the stimuli of the world around us
to arouse sinful thought in us. The Devil would be a fool not to try to take
advantage of the world and the flesh in his aim to destroy us.
Timothy M. Warner
Spiritual Warfare, Crossway, 1991, p. 59-60.
I have had
more trouble with myself than with any other man.
D.L. Moody