Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, Chap. 9

Today we take a look at chapter 9: Particular Directions for Mortification. While the chapter is a bit longer than previous ones and pretty heavy at times, I hope everyone is beginning to understand how he writes and is following along better. Don't worry about grasping everything, because if that was the main concern, I probably would have given up at chapter 1. While there are passages hard to understand, there is also a freshness that comes out of his writings and helps us gain insight into our souls, temptations, and how we deal with the sin in our lives.

Summary

Consider whether your lust has these dangerous symptoms accompanying it. This is the subheading of chap 9 and Owen will then give us two areas to examine.

1. Inveterateness. Defined as 'the state of being hardened, habitual, deep-rooted'.

2. Secret pleas of the heart for the countenancing. Or approving secret sins of the heart.


Personal Thoughts

I will try to be brief here, listing a couple of points.

Point 1: Habitual Sin. Here is what Owen writes about this, "If it has lain long corrupting in your heart, if you have suffered it to abide in power and prevalency, without attempting vigorously the killing of it and the healing of the wounds you have received by it for some long season, your distemper is dangerous... When a lust has lain long in the heart, corrupting, festering, cankering, it brings the soul to a woeful condition."

This shows itself in this way. We have a heart in love with sin. Why else would we hold onto certain sins, never mortifying them, and only allowing the shame and guilt of our conscience bother us. While that may deter us for a season, the hidden sin our heart will rear its ugly head and we naturally give in, it is something we love.

So, when sins are brought to our minds, it is necessary to mortify them yielding ourselves completely to God who forgives us through Jesus. Owen uses the example of the Jews in Jesus' day who would cling to their ancestry, being "children of Abraham" as the link to God, at the same time living lives of disobedience and sin before God. Relying on anything other than Jesus to put to death sin in our lives will leave us empty.

Point 2: Under Grace. I love this one, because it is so common place in the church today. Owen says this, "By applying grace and mercy to an unmortified sin, or one not sincerely endeavored to be mortified, is this deceit carried on... to indulge a man's self in any sin on the account of mercy, seems to be, and doubtless in any course is, altogether inconsistent with Christian sincerity, and is a badge of a hypocrite, and is the "turning of the grace of God into wantonness."

We tend to use grace as a license to sin. While we categorize sin, that which is deplorable; the sexual sins like homosexuality, pre-marital sex, adultery, etc. we will attempt to justify lust and gloss over it. We are under grace. We don't DO those other things. But listen to the words of Jesus, "if any man looks at a woman and lusts after her in his mind, he as committed adultery (paraphrased)."

There is an attempt to use grace and mercy to cover over a multitude of our 'secret sins we love in our hearts' and even when confronted with God's word regarding them, we continue in those very sins. Why do we do this? Because we like them, they don't hurt anyone else, who will know I am doing this, everyone else does it... and our justification of sin continues.

Tim Challies says it this way, "We would rather go through life refusing to put these (small and respectable sins; foul language or bad tempers, copying DVD's or music...)to death and allowing them free reign in our lives than allowing God to deal with them. When we do this, we apply God's mercy to these sins, knowing that Jesus died to forgive even these. And yet we are unrepentant for them and are unwilling to let go of them."

Might it be that we indulge in sin we love while pointing out the sin in others to make us feel better about ourselves, yet at the same time both of us are holding on to sins of the heart we love. We both may cling to God's grace and mercy in Jesus and ask His forgiveness; yet refuse to mortify it, put it to death, repent and turn from it.

Our relationship with Christ and each other might be better, more biblical, if we would allow the Holy Spirit to examine our own lives, revealing sin and then confessing said sin, repenting of it, and encouraging each other rather than judge each other. It might even reveal within us a greater testimony and witness to a lost and dying world that needs to hear about the love of Jesus, not the sins of others. Just a thought...

Your Turn

Again, thanks for your comments. Please feel free to share what you gained from this chapter or any questions you might have... next week chapter 10.