Dr Paul Allen

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Tim Challies on John Owen and Sin.  So far we’ve looked at  The Foundation of Mortification , we’ve been encouraged to  Daily Put Sin to Death , to understand that  It Is the Holy Spirit Who Puts Sin to Death  and to acknowledge that  Your Spiritual Life Depends Upon Killing Sin . Then we saw  What It Is  Not  to Put Sin to Death  and  What It Is to Put Sin to Death . He now moves on to the actual directions for how to put sin to death; first he deals with a couple of foundational issue (which is what I’m looking at today) and in the months that follow he’ll move on to very specific instructions. #1 - There Will Be No Mortification Unless a Man Be a Believer Unless a man be a believer—that is, one that is truly ingrafted into Christ —he can never mortify any one sin; I do not say, unless he know himself to be so, but unless indeed he be so. … There is no death of sin without the death of Christ . There’s

Mortification Consists of a Habitual Weakening of Sin Though this quote serves as introduction rather than the main point, I thought it was too good not to share: The reason why a natural man is not always perpetually in the pursuit of some one lust , night and day, is because he has many to serve, every one crying to be satisfied; thence he is carried on with great variety, but still in general he lies toward the satisfaction of self. Owen is a straight-shooter! He says that the only reason you are not absolutely consumed with any one sin is that you have many other sins to serve. And then he goes on to share the first thing you need to know about putting sin to  death . The first thing in mortification is the weakening of this habit of sin or lust, that it shall not, with that violence, earnestness, frequency, rise up, conceive, tumultuate, provoke, entice, disquiet as naturally as it is apt to do. The first thing to observe as you begin to put sin to death is that sin becomes pro