On a Search and Destroy Mission with John Owen

John Owen

Wise advice on sin from one who has gone on before us...

We need to recognize the enemy we are dealing with and resolve that it is to be destroyed by all means possible.

Hence

We need to be intimately acquainted with the ways, wiles, methods, advantages and occasions which give lust its success. This is how men deal with their enemies. They search out their plans, ponder their goals, and consider how and by  what means they have prevailed over them in the past. Then they can be defeated. ...

Even when lust is not enticing and seducing, they consider, while at leisure, 'This is still our enemy; this is his way and his methods, these are his advantages, this is way the way he has prevailed, and he will do this, if he is no prevented.' ...

One of the choicest and most important parts of spiritual wisdom is to find out the subtleties, policies, and depths of any indwelling sin; to consider where its greatest strength lies - how it uses occasions, opportunities, and temptations to gain an advantage. From The Mortification of Sin: Abridged and made easy to read by Richard Rushing, Banner of Truth, pgs. 36-37.