Pulpit Magazine

(By Nathan Williams) 

“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”  (John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

It is with these famous words that the Puritan John Owen challenged every Christian to make killing sin a daily priority. My goal is to emphasize the daily aspect of mortification more than the technique of mortification. You can study on your own the methods necessary for mortification of sin. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of us know how to kill sin. We know what we need to do. Our problem is not a lack of knowledge; it’s a lack of faithfulness. It is a lack of grit and determination to spend the years and years necessary to weaken sin’s grip on us. The challenge is to realize that the fight against sin will be just that, a fight. It will be difficult and long, lasting all day, every day until the day you die. But the rewards gained by killing sin far surpass the effort expended in the struggle.

Why attack our sinful tendencies daily? Most Christians seem to wander through life without specifically and aggressively attacking particular sins. Owen would have us recognize that this practice is compulsory on every believer every single day. Since the primary barrier keeping us from the fierce pursuit of the death of sin is weak motivation, I would like to provide several reasons to pursue the annihilation of sin daily. Hopefully these reasons will prompt you to take up the battle against indwelling sin with renewed vigor. 

1. Sin is a serious, faith destroying disease. One of the reasons we do not put up a daily fight against sin is we do not truly understand the nature of sin. Because we don’t comprehend the nature and the final purpose sin has for us, we don’t take it seriously. Sin is aggressive by nature and is hazardous to the advancement of our spiritual lives. It wars and fights against us and must be taken seriously. Galatians 5:17 and I Peter 2:11 describe the true character of the war going on in every believer. John Gill had this to say about the relationship between the flesh and the spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:17,

“…these are contrary the one to the other; as light and darkness, fire and water, or any two opposites can be thought to be; they are contrary in their nature, actings, and effects; there is not only a repugnancy to each other, but a continued war, conflict, and combat, is maintained between them…” (John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible)

The essential nature of sin is critical to understand when seeking to fight against it. Scripture calls sin many different things including: missing the mark, irreligion, transgression, iniquity, rebellion, treachery, perversion, and abomination (Christian Theology, Erickson). Meditating on that list should prove the seriousness of sin and the importance of the struggle against it. 

2. Sin is deceitful. Hebrews 3:13 tells us that in the church we should be encouraging one another every day so we won’t be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Scripture presents sin from the very beginning as deceitful in its essence. Our first parents quickly discovered the fraudulent nature of sin. Saying sin is deceitful means: “It consists in presenting unto the soul, or mind, things otherwise than they are, either in their nature, causes, effects, or present respect unto the soul” (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, Owen). Sin and temptation simply will not tell you the truth. Ephesians 4:22 reminds us of the true nature of sin by calling our sins “lusts of deceit.” When pondering the fact that Scripture so often refers to sin as deceitful, it is astonishing that we trust it as often as we do. The voice of temptation whispers to our heart that everything will be different this time. It tells us that on this occasion sin won’t harm us and will actually profit us. During that moment of temptation so many lies run through our heads and we consistently believe those lies (James 1:13-16). The act of believing those fabrications is beyond doubt irrational. Wayne Grudem summarizes well:

“Though people sometimes persuade themselves that they have good reasons for sinning, when examined in the cold light of truth on the last day, it will be seen in every case that sin ultimately just does not make sense.” (Systematic Theology, Grudem)

3. Sin will harden your heart. This may be the most devastating effect of sin and it provides us with strong motivation to daily search and destroy sin in our personal lives. We often wonder how seemingly godly believers in high positions can fall into immorality such as Ted Haggard recently. The answer lies in the words of Hebrews 3:13 which say that people are “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” No person is immune to the hardening affect of sin.

“The deceitfulness of sin is of a hardening nature to the soul; one sin allowed prepares for another; every act of sin confirms the habit; sinning against conscience is the way to sear the conscience; and therefore it should be the great concern of every one to exhort himself and others to beware of sin.” (Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible)

This means that you are currently beginning the process of hardening your own heart toward sin. Any sin you commit today either begins that course or continues it toward a hardened heart. F.F. Bruce explains the development of a hard heart through sin:

“Where the right path lies clear before the eyes, a disinclination to follow it can be reinforced in the mind by many beguiling lines of rationalization; but to surrender to them results in a hardening of the heart, a reduced sensitivity of conscience, which makes it more difficult to recognize the right path on a subsequent occasion.” (The Epistle to the Hebrews, Bruce)

My hope is that you will carry these straightforward motivations as weapons into your personal fight with sin today. Here are some final words from John Owen concerning the need to combat sin faithfully:

“The mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh, is the constant duty of believers.”  (Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

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