Dr Paul Allen

How Not to Fight Sin Fighting sin is spiritual warfare, and warfare requires a battle plan. If left to our own devices, we would have little success against our unseen enemy. Thankfully, God’s word supplies wisdom to assist us in eluding the evil one’s snares. We’ll begin by briefly considering how not to engage in the battle, followed by practical tactics to flee sin and follow God. Don’t Fight Sin by Ignoring It Pretending sin isn’t there won’t help you fight it, as with Ben. Ben was a jokester, but at times, his jesting became inappropriate. He turned innocent comments into crude remarks and occasionally used off-colour language to get a laugh. When conviction came, he rationalized it away. He’d think, “I didn’t really mean it. It’s not who I really am. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m free in Christ.” An unwillingness to admit sin prevents you from repenting of it. Don’t Fight Sin by Entertaining It We also can’t fight by entertaining sin, as with Jess. Jess struggled with body ima...

Nick Batzig Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most ancient and revered military manuals in all of human history. In it, Sun Tzu set out what he believed to be the “essentials of military victory.” He wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”1 Many of the seventeenth-century Puritans also emphasized the importance of knowing the enemy and his tactics when they approached the subject of spiritual warfare. For instance, in his Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices, Thomas Brooks highlighted “the essentials” of spiritual warfare: “Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan’s devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter.”2 I...

The longer you fight against your sin, the more temptations you may face to no longer fight so hard. Once, perhaps, your zeal burned, your spiritual blood boiled. But as months passed and years passed, desires for a more comfortable Christianity were somehow wedged beneath your armour. Paul talks of killing sin and starving sin (Romans 8:13; 13:14), but you have begun to wonder whether a less decisive, more long-term approach may work just as well. Jesus speaks of tearing out an eye and cutting off a hand (Matthew 5:29) — you theoretically agree but, if honest, can hardly imagine self-denial so extreme. You may have once found relish in the righteous ferocity of a man like John Owen, who wrote of walking “over the bellies of his lusts” (Works, 6:14). But some time has passed since your boots have trampled your lusts. And as another Puritan once put it, you may feel tempted to speak of your sins as Lot did of Zoar: “Is it, not a little one?” (Genesis 19:20). Time makes way for many litt...

When Mark’s Gospel opens, Mark highlights the ministry of John the Baptist (1:2–8). But then Mark zeros in on the baptism (1:9–11) and temptation of Jesus (1:12–13) since those things preceded Jesus’s public ministry (1:14–15). The language of Jesus’s temptations fascinates me because Mark mentions the presence of wild animals, and Mark is the only Gospel writer who does this. 12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. Why would the presence of “wild animals” be worth mentioning? First of all, the location of the wilderness explains the presence of wild animals. The wilderness was understood as a place for wild animals. The opening verses of Mark’s Gospel introduced the “wilderness” idea (1:3, quoting from Isa. 40). John the Baptist was baptizing “in the wilderness” (1:4). Now in 1:12, we read that the Spirit drove Jesus out into “the...

There is no way out . She knows such bitter, biting thoughts are wrong and shameful, but her friend’s comment cut so deeply. Her mind keeps returning to the moment, reliving the wound. She feebly tries to turn her thoughts elsewhere, but the offence seems to surround her like a fog. And how do you fight a fog? He, too, is well aware that he’s walking down a worthless path. He’s been here before — this thought, leading to that fantasy, producing these seemingly unconquerable desires. Maybe he could have escaped if he had turned around immediately, but he feels he has gone too far. He has plucked and felt the fruit; how can he not now taste it? No way out. Who hasn’t felt the force of these words amid bitterness, lust, or a thousand other temptations? And who hasn’t succumbed to their dark suggestion? If some lies have slain their thousands, this lie has slain its ten thousand. Every Temptation Escapable We are hardly the first to feel trapped, surrounded, and hemmed in by the power of s...

If you’re old enough to read this, you are an experienced veteran of sinful temptation, having encountered it every day of your life since you began to discern right from wrong. As an experienced veteran, you’ll surely agree that we need all the help we can get when sinful anger begins to boil, or when we find our eyes pulled toward a forbidden desire, when indulging laziness looks very appealing, or when some icy fear of death draws us in a faithless direction (more on this in a moment). The good news is that strong help is available: Jesus is a “merciful and faithful high priest” who is “able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17–18). We could say he is mercifully eager and faithfully able to help us. But what exactly does this mean? How does Jesus’s ministry as our high priest help us in the heat of a tempting moment? How Our High Priest Helps Us The author of Hebrews addresses this question in Hebrews 2:14–18: Since . . . the children share in flesh and blood, he himse...

Jesus was sinless. “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth,” says Peter (1 Peter 2:22). And he remains sinless today. “In him, there is no sin,” says John (1 John 3:5). This glorious truth forms the basis of his substitutionary atoning work for sinners. But his sinlessness also forms the basis of why he is qualified to sympathize with us as sinners. And on that point comes a controversy. If Jesus is sinless, doesn’t that mean he never really tasted the power of temptation? How can a perfect man who never sinned — a man who never struggled to get free from a sin habit — how can he truly feel the power of temptation? This line of thinking is wrong. It’s wrong because you’re not struggling with sin if you’re continually giving in to sin. In other words, the pressure of temptation is felt most strongly by those who most earnestly resist giving in to the sin. And if that point sounds familiar, it should. We covered that theme several times on the podcast already, particu...

Fight and Choke Temptation Years ago, a man was hunting deer in the Tehama Wildlife Area of Northern California. As he climbed through a rocky gorge, he lifted his head to look over a ledge and saw something move next to his face. Before he knew it, a rattlesnake struck, just missing him. The strike was so close, however, that the snake’s fangs became snagged in the neck of his sweater. As the snake coiled around the man’s neck, he grabbed it just behind its head. A mixture of hissing and rattling filled his ear as he felt warm venom run down his neck. He tried to dislodge the fangs from his sweater but fell backward and slid down the embankment. Using his rifle, he untangled the fangs, freeing the snake to strike repeatedly at his face. The man later explained, “I had to choke him to death. It was the only way out.”1 When you face temptation, you enter a battle even more dangerous than having a rattler striking at your face. The Scriptures liken Satan to a closely crouching snake or l...

As Christians, we have a dangerous adversary. We face something far scarier than getting stuffed in a locker. Our enemy wants to devour our faith and drag us to hell. So, when the apostle Paul instructs the Ephesian church about spiritual warfare, he begins by exhorting them not to go into the battle in their own strength. He reminds them of their Elder Brother. He says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:10–11). Marching into War Jesus is on a mission to rescue captive souls from a strong enemy (Mark 3:23; Luke 19:10). Through his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus delivered a mortal wound to our formidable foe (Colossians 2:15; 1 John 3:8). He now calls sinners to flee from Satan’s captivity and align with his everlasting kingdom (Acts 17:30). He commissions his church to join him in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18–20)....

Temptation often prevails against us because of our simple and naive assumptions about temptation. We expect temptation will march through the front door, dressed like a wolf, announcing itself loudly as it comes. But temptation often prefers the back door, and the bedroom window, and that crack between the floorboards. Temptation relies on subtlety and nuance, on deception and surprise, on ignorance and naivete. To begin to taste victory, we have to start treating the war as a war. We have to study the enemy of our souls. We remember the story of Samson and Delilah because she overpowered the strongest man alive. But have we ever stopped to really ask how? How did Delilah subdue a man who had just killed a thousand men? When we unravel the secrets of her seduction, they can become weapons for us against whatever temptation we face. The Ambition of Temptation The first step in taking temptation more seriously is to remember that temptation has a mission: to ruin your soul and rob you o...

In Matthew 6:13 Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Wait for a second—what’s God’s relationship to temptation we face? Although the Greek of this sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer is unambiguous, its meaning is certainly elusive and has exercised the minds of Christians for centuries. The keyword is 'peirasmos', which may mean “temptation” in the sense of “enticement to do wrong.” But against this possible meaning, James 1:13 states a truth that admits no exceptions: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.”  Consequently, it is impossible for God actively to lead people into wrongdoing; he cannot contradict his nature. Testing of faith This prompts the interpreter to consider the other, the more common meaning of 'peirasmos'—“trial,” “test,” or “testing.” Thus the NAB translates the verse, “Do not subjec...