When We Are Drawn Away from Obedience

Deceit of the mind is carried on by degrees, little by little.  We are first drawn away from watchfulness, then from obedience.  We become like Ephraim, of whom God said, “Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it; gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:9). [...]

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Though It Wages War, It Has No Mastery

The third thing we must understand about indwelling sin is that it sends to deceive our understanding or reasoning. Our reason, enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, stands in the way of sin gaining mastery over us through our desires.  Therefore Satan’s great “deceitful desires” of the old self (Ephesians 4:22). [...]

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When Desire Overcomes Reason

The seat of indwelling sin, then, is our deceitful, unsearchable heart.  A second thing we should realize is that indwelling sin works largely through our desires.  Ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden, man has listened to his desires more than his reasons.  Desire has come to be the strongest faculty of man’s [...]

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We Must Know Something of Its Nature and Tactics

If we are to wage a successful war against this enemy within, it is important that we know something of its nature and tactics.  First of all, the Scripture indicates that the seat of indwelling sin is the heart. “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, [...]

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We Must Discover and Understand Its Strength

Through our union with Christ in His death we are delivered from the dominion of sin.  But we still find sin struggling to gain mastery over us, as Paul depicted so vividly: “When I want to do good, evil is tight there with me” (Romans 7:21).  We may not like the fact that we have [...]

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Courting Disaster In the Pursuit of Holiness

So we see that God has made provision for our holiness.  Through Christ He has delivered us from sin’s reign so that we now can resist sin.   But the responsibility for resisting is ours.  God does not do that for us.  To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for [...]

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Sin Does Reign in Our Mortal Bodies

Therefore, though sin no longer reigns in us, it will constantly try to get at us.  Though we have been delivered from the kingdom of sin and its rule, we have not been delivered from its attacks.  As Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says in his exposition of Romans 6, though sin cannot reign in us, that [...]

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We Don’t Want this Man to be Our King

It is because we were in this realm of sin, under its reign and rule, that we began to sin from infancy.  Because we were slaves we acted as slaves.  We developed sinful habits and a sinful character.  Even if we were what the world considers “good.” we lived for ourselves, not for God.  Our [...]

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What Our Will Must Be Influenced By

We are indeed to reckon – or to count or consider – ourselves dead to sin [upon salvation], but our reckoning does not make it true, even in our experience.  Verses 11 and 12 [Romans 6] must be taken together.  Because we are dead to sin through our union with Christ, we are not to [...]

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Assurance of Salvation

Holiness also is necessary for our assurance of salvation – not at the moment of salvation but over the course of our lives.  True faith will always show itself by its fruits (II Corinthians 5:17)
- Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness, Navpress, copyright 1978, page 42

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