A Fight Worth Picking

In Judges 6 you can read about Gideon picking a fight with his neighbors.  As the newly appointed judge, he started his tenure by chopping down local alters built for false gods.  That didn’t go well with all the local Baal-worshipers who came to Gideon’s Dad’s house looking for blood.  But Gideon (and his Dad) stood their ground and; consequently, his name was changed to Jerubbaal, (“Baal-Fighter”), which became his new ring name.

Throughout the book of Judges you can read about God delivering his people from enemies without.  But God also makes it clear that the greatest enemy lies within.  In fact, right before God appoints Gideon, he sends a preacher to tell the people that their greatest enemy was not the Canaanites without, but sin within. (6:10).

It’s true today, sin is still the great enemy within.  We all sin (Romans 3:10,23; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Genesis 6:5).  Sin kills us physically (Genesis 3:19; Romans 6:23).  And sin will kill us spiritually (Hebrews 9:27; Romans 6:23).  Our only hope is to turn to the sin-killer, Jesus, and fight (Isaiah 45:22).

Many Christians have turned to Jesus, but few are fighters.  In the 17^th century, John Owen, expounding on Romans 8:13, said that “it is the constant duty of believers to render a death blow to the deeds of the flesh,” and he encouraged Christians to “not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.”  These quotes come from Owen’s treatise on The Mortification of Sin, which Jerry Bridges calls “the most helpful writing on personal holiness ever written.”

I wonder if we aren’t fighting like we should.  And I wonder if some of us are in greater danger than we realize.

It would be wise for many in our modern, evangelical, barely hooked-on-phonics, I black out when I read big words sub-culture to tread through The Mortification of Sin and take up this battle afresh.  Maybe this blog can help. 

For the next 8 weeks, through weekly blog posts, I’m going to summarize Owen’s work and write practically about his Biblical process for fighting sin.  If you think it would be helpful, I encourage you to follow along.  Click here if you’d like to look over a concise outline of Owen’s book (a more detailed outline to follow next week).