John Owen on Conquering Lust through Meditating on God.

John Owen comments in his essay, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, about how although we do not have the capacity to fully understand His Word, we can compensate for this inability by meditating on God's greatness, limitless power, and holiness.

We are dull and slow of heart to receive the things that are in the word revealed; God, by our infirmity and weakness, keeping us in continual dependence on him for teachings and revelations of himself out of his word, never in this world bringing any soul to the utmost of what is from the word to be made out and discovered--so that although the way of revelation in the gospel be clear and evident, yet we know little of the things themselves that are revealed. Let us, then, revive the use and intention of this consideration: will not a due apprehension of this inconceivable greatness of God, and that infinite distance wherein we stand from him, fill the soul with a holy and awful fear of him, so as to keep it in a frame unsuited to the thriving of flourishing of any lust whatsoever Let the soul be continually wonted to reverential thoughts of God's greatness and omnipresence, and it will be much upon its watch as to any undue deportments. Consider him with whom you have to do--even "our God is a consuming fire" [Heb. 12:29]--and in your greatest abashments at his presence and eye, know that your very nature is too narrow to bear apprehensiins suitable to his essential glory.(pp. 117-118, Overcoming Sin & Temptation)

I have two thoughts about this paragraph. First, God's Word is a wonderful resource. We as evangelicals tend to read books about biblical themes (i.e. biblical counseling, daily living, the spiritual disciplines, etc.) without doing the hard work of studying and meditating on God's Word itself. Although, we have over two thousand years of Church scholarship and books being written every day on the Word, we have not even scratch the surface of understanding God's Word. We need to long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word at a very personal level. Second, our default position in our decision-making process for our day-to-day walk needs to be not "What Would Jesus Do?", but an informed decision about "Does this glorify Christ?"

John Owen on Knowing God

John Owen writes about "knowing" or at least the "not knowing" the being of God.

For the being of God; we are so far from a knowledge of it, so as to be able to instruct one another therein by words and expressions of it, as that to frame any conceptions in our mind, with such species and impressions of things as we receive the knowledge of all other things by, is to make an idol to ourselves, and so to worship a god of our own making, and not the God that made us. We may as well and as lawfully hew him out of wood or stone as form him a being in our minds, suited to our apprehensions. The utmost of the best of our thoughts of the being of God is that we can have no thoughts of it. Our knowledge of a being is but low when it mounts no higher but only to know that we know it not.

There [may] be some things of God which he himself has taught us to speak of, and to regulate our expressions of them; but when we have so done, we see not the things themselves; we know them not. To believe and admire is all that we attain to. We profess, as we are taught, that God is infinite, omnipotent, eternal; and we know what disputes and notions there are about omnipresence, immensity, infiniteness, and eternity. We have, I say, words and notions about these things; but as to the things themselves what do we know? What do we comprehend of them? Can the mind of man do any more but swallow itself up in an infinite abyss, which is as nothing; give itself up to what it cannot conceive, much less express? Is not our understanding "brutish" in the contemplation of such things, and is as if it were not? Yea, the perfection of our understanding is not to understand, and to rest there. They are but the back parts of eternity and infiniteness that we have a glimpse of. What shall I say of the Trinity, or the subsistence of distinct persons in the same individual essence--a mystery by many denied, because by none understood--a mystery whose every letter is mysterious? Who can declare the generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, or the difference of the one from the other? But I shall not further instance in particulars. That infinite and inconceivable distance that is between him and us keeps us in the dark as any sight of his face or clear apprehension of his perfections. (pp. 114-115, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

Again, these paragraphs are taken out of context. Owen goes on and writes how faith is central to our knowing God truly and experientially, but this passage serves us well to contemplate God as Job did when God finally revealed some of His glory to Job at the end of the book.

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6, ESV)

How Augustine Preached Sermons

Peter Brown in his magnificent biography of Augustine of Hippo wrote about Augustine's sermons.

For Augustine did not 'preach' sermons, in the sense of delivering fierce denunciations of the gods. Rather he gave his congregation what we could call a 'teach-in'. In a world where the overwhelming majority of the population was illiterate, Christian doctrine was not primarily communicated through books. It was communicated, in detail, by sermons. The sermons preached by Augustine in 404 were nothing less than a series of master classes on the nature of true relations between God and men. They were preserved as they were spoken by stenographers. In them, we hear the principal themes of the Confessions of De Trinitate and the City of God brought to life for us in the simple Latin of the streets of Carthage and of the small towns of the Medjerda valley. Ordinary congregations were to have their full share of Augustine's magnificent vision of the Christian religion (pp. 457-458)

I want to make a couple of observations. First, obviously being illiterate is not the same as being stupid. Scholars have many of Augustine's sermons and the sermons taught difficult concepts to the ordinary congregation of that day. Sermons went on for over 2 hours at times. The preachers at that time made the sermons cyclical and segmented so the audience could leave and come back and still pick up the sense of the sermon.

The second observation is I am reading 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. The 4th practice is "Teach Less for More." The authors make some good points teaching children, but I do not agree with all their points about teaching adults. The authors want the churches to teach what is helpful (p. 136). However, we as a congregation need to go deep into theology at times to plumb the depths of grace. Paul prays in Ephesians for the Ephesian church to have "strength to comprehend."

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19, ESV)

Knowing God is hard work and difficult. From reading this biography of Augustine, I would think Augustine would agree that Christians need to understand theology so they can understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. Read the Pauline epistles and remember that Paul was not writing to theologians alone. He was writing to ordinary congregations. God wants us to use our hearts, minds and souls to worship him.

John Owen: Greatest Motivation for a Life of Purity

I am still reading John Owen's essay, "Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers." The following quote loses a bit of impact from being out of context, but it is still good.

Consider who and what you are; who the Spirit is that is grieved, what he has done for you, what he comes to your soul about, what he has already done in you; and be ashamed. Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness, than this, that the blessed Spirit, who has undertaken to dwell in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoices when his temple is kept undefiled. (p. 102, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

Augustine's Views on Predestination

I am finishing up a very good biography called Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown. Brown spent a whole chapter explaining Augustine's view of predestination towards the end of his life. I copied a few of the more striking passages.

For Augustine's doctrine of predestination, as he elaborated it, was a doctrine for fighting men. A monk might waste his leisure worrying about his utlimate identity: to Augustine, such an anxiety was misplaced. A doctrine of predestination divorced from action was inconceivable to him. He has never written to deny freedom, merely to make it more effective in the harsh environment of a fallen world. The world demanded, among other things, unremitting intellectual labour to gain truth, stern rebuke to move men. (p. 406)

The following quote is from an Augustinian commentary on Deuteronomy.

Say not in thy heart: My strength and the power of my hand has wrought this great wonder: but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for He it is Who gives the strength to do great deeds.

Augustine consoled the victims of the sack of Rome by using the doctrine of predestination and reminding the victims that their future is secure in heaven with bodies that will be glorified.

What is more, such views made the world readily intelligible. The doctrine of predestination was developed by Augustine mainly as a doctrine, in which every event was charged with a precise meaning as a deliberate act of God, of mercy for the elect, of judgement for the damned...
Similarly, every tribulation of the elect was a calculated mercy. This alone was no small thing: for in the anthology of the works of Augustine, later compiled by Prosper, the opening book of the City of God, with the record of the still-distant news of unburied corpses, of nuns raped, of the enslavement of prisoners of war, will now appear as relevant to the every day experience of a man of the fifth century. (pp. 406-407)

Augustine at the end of his life wrote on perseverance. He tried to answer the question, what keeps a Christian on his walk throughout his life through pain and suffering?

What preoccupied Augustine, therefore, was no longer the mobilization of love that caused a man to act, but the mysterious resilience that would enable some men to maintain this love for the full course of their lives.(p. 408)

The 'gift of perseverance', as he [Augustine] had said , was the greatest of God's gifts to the individual. For it bestowed on frail human beings the same unshakeable stablility as the human nature in Christ had enjoyed: by this gift, a man was joined forever to the Divine, could be confident that the 'hand of God' would stretched above him to shield him, unfailingly, against the world. 'Human nature could not have been raised higher.' (p. 409)

Predestination, an abstract stumbling-block to the sheltered communities of Hadrumetum and Marseilles, as it would be to so many future Christians, had only one meaning for Augustine: it was a doctrine of survival, a fierce insistence that God alone could provide men with an irreducible inner core. (p. 410)

John Owen on the Deceitfulness of Sin

Here are two quotes by John Owen on the deceitfulness of sin. The first observation Owen makes is Christians minimize the full impact of sin.

Solomon tells you of him who was enticed by the lewd woman, that he was "among the simple ones," he was " a young man void of understanding" (Prov. 7:7). And wherein did his folly appear? Why, says he (v. 23), "he knew not that it was for his life," he considered not the guilt of the evil that he was involved in. (p. 97, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

We should not toy with sin because sin deadens our pursuit and enjoyment of God. The second observation builds on the first observation. Owen solemnly encourages us to be careful and watchful to be not hardened by sin's deceitfulness

This the apostle sorely charges on the Hebrews (3:12-13), "Take heed, brethren, lest there be any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." "Take heed, " says he, "use all means, consider you temptations, watch diligently; there is a treachery, a deceit in sin, that tends to the hardening of your hearts from the fear of God." The hardening here mentioned is to the utmost --utter obduration; sin tends to it, and every distemper and lust will make at least some progress toward it. You that were tender, and used to melt under the word, under afflictions, will grow as some have profanely spoken, "sermon-proof and sickness-proof." You that did tremble at the presence of God, thoughts of death, and appearance before him, when you had more assurance of his love than now you have, shall have a stoutness upon your spirit not to be moved by these things. Your soul and your sin shall be spoken of and spoken to, and you shall not be all concerned, but shall be to pass over duties, praying, hearing, reading, and your heart not in the least affected. Sin will grow a light thing to you; you will pass it by as a thing of naught; this it will grow to. And what will be the end of such a condition? Can a sadder thing befall you? Is it not enough to make any heart to tremble, to think ob being brought into that estate wherein he should slight thoughts of sin? Slight thoughts of grace, of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the law, heaven, and hell, come all in at the same season. Take heed, this is that [which] your lust is working toward--the hardening of the heart, searing of the conscience, blinding of the mind, stupifying of the affections, and deceiving of the whole soul. (pp. 98-99, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)

Pining for the City of God

Rome was sacked. Augustine's congregation in Hippo was confused and saddened. Augustine decided to preach on the Psalms to encourage his flock by pointing that only one city was eternal and that was the City of God. This series of sermons became the foundation of Augustine's magnus opus, The City of God. The premise was that throughout history there has been two cities represented by Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon was the city of the people who reject God and His government. The heavenly Jerusalem was the city of God. The citizens of these two cities might be hard to distinguish at times, but in the last days their citizenship will become clear. The following quote was from one of these sermons. It explained how we, the Church, maintain and manifest our citizenship in the present age.

Now let us hear, brothers, let us hear and sing; let us pine for the City where we are citizens.... By pining we are already there; we have already cast our hope, like an anchor, on that coast. I sing of somewhere else, not of here: for I sing with my heart, not my flesh. The citizens of Babylon hear the sound of the flesh, the Founder of Jerusalem hears the tune of our heart. (Augustine as quoted by Peter Brown, p. 314, Augustine of Hippo

The author of Hebrews wrote that even before Jerusalem was an earthly city, Abraham sought the eternal city --the city of promise--during his earthly stay on earth.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10, ESV)

After the role call of faith in chapter 11 of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews point out that all these heroes of the faith were seeking a heavenly city.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16, ESV)

Finally, at the end of Hebrews, we are to understand that this material world around us is not real, but we should seek the new Jerusalem which is permanent.

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:14, ESV)

God Chose the Foolish of the World to Shame the Wise

I am reading Peter Brown's excellent biography of Augustine of Hippo. The author describes the intellectual milieu of Augustine's day just before Augustine started writing his masterpiece, City of God. Peter Brown writes about the neo-paganists, who were growing in number in the decaying Roman Empire and were intellectual opponents of Christianity. The following quote describes how a neo-paganist would have viewed Christianity.

For such men, Christianity appeared, as it appears to many to-day, as a religion out of joint with the natural assumptions of a whole culture. The great Platonists of their age, Plotinus and Porphyry, could provide them with a profoundly religious view of the world, that grew naturally out of an immemorial tradition. The claims of the Christian, by contrast, lacked intellectual foundation. For a man such as Volusianus to accept the Incarnation would have been like a modern European denying the evolution of the species: he would have had to abandon not only the most advanced, rationally based knowledge available to him, but, by implication, the whole culture permeated by such achievements. Quite bluntly, the pagans were the 'wise' men, the 'experts', prudentes; and the Christians were 'stupid'. (pp. 299-300, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography)

This excerpt reminds me of 1 Corinthians 1:26-31.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, ESV)

Christianity was never the intellectually cool religion throughout the ages. Intellectual non-Christians stumbled over the truths about the necessity of the Cross and the depravity of their sin. God did not choose us because we were smarter than our opponents. We were chosen to shame the wise and embarrass the strong through our stupidity and weakness.

God wants to bring Himself glory through us in spite of us. Consider Augustine who was very sharp intellectually. However, we need to remember he was a country bumpkin from Africa and he was not from Rome: the cultural center of his world.  Also consider that he did not know Greek that well. We can be sure that he felt unequal to the task at times to fight his intellectual battles with the culture. However, we can assume that he knew that God placed him where he would do the most good. We, like Augustine, can know we serve an infinitely wise God.

The Trinity Orchestrates the Symphony of Salvation Together

We talked about the Trinity in Core last Thursday. In the introduction to a collection of essays called, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, David and Jonathan Gibson wrote about how the Trinity is involved in salvation on page 49. They quoted Fred Sanders.

The Trinity orchestrates the symphony of salvation in all its movements: the Father elects and sends, the Son becomes incarnate and dies, the Spirit draws and vivifies. But while their works are distinct they are not independent: the Father elects in Christ, the incarnate Son offers himself on the cross through the eternal Spirit to the Father, and the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son to draw and seal the elect. Grounded in the mutual indwelling of their persons, the Father, Son, and Spirit together serve the shared goal of our salvation. "The Spirit serves the Son by applying what he accomplished, and the Son serves the Spirit by making his indwelling possible. Both Son and Spirit, together on their twofold mission from the Father, serve the Father and mister to us." (Fred Sanders, Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, p. 149)

The Choir: God's Commandos

Judah was in trouble. The Moabites, Ammonites, and some Meunites were coming to invade Judah. Jehosophat was a faithful king, but God decided to test Jehosophat and the people of Judah. They passed with flying colors. The first act Jehosophat did was to 'set his face to seek the Lord'. He then called a fast and called the people to gather so that they may seek the Lord together. Here's the passage in 2 Chronicles.

Meanwhile all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly. And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.”

Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the Levites, of the Kohathites and the Korahites, stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say,

“Give thanks to the Lord,
for his steadfast love endures forever.”

And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another. (2 Chronicles 20:13-23, ESV)

The front lines in this battle was the choir. God wanted to demonstrate to Judah that God protects those who wait on Him. God will not fail those who trust Him and praise Him. What better way to thank God than through music. One of the main tools God has in his arsenal to fight his battles in this world is corporate worship. It helps the body of Christ to worship God in unison.

Paul and Silas had a similar experience with worship. They were in Philippi. Paul and Silas were captured, dragged through the streets, stripped of their clothes, beaten by rods, imprisoned and placed in stocks. These missionaries set the example for all missionaries that followed them in suffering: they sang hymns and glorified God.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. (Acts 16:25-26, ESV)

God again responded to their praise of His commandos (missionaries); he set them free. The following passages exhort us to sing corporately to celebrate God's work in our lives, to teach one another about Christ, to admonish one another, and to give thanks in our hearts to God.

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

John Owen on the Nature of Sin

Here's a few quotes from the book Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen. It is a tough read, but here are some nuggets from Owen, with some general observations.

Without sincerity and diligence in a universality of obedience, there is no mortification of any one perplexing lust to be obtained. (p. 86)

Owen is pointing out that one may conquer one sin, but like a hydra, it might grow another head in some other sin. The only way to kill sin off (the mortification is never totally accomplished during our stay on earth) is total obedience to the Gospel.

Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love Christ in the cross, lies at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification.(p. 87)

We may hate how a sin (gambling or pornography addiction) may affect our lives and our family, but unless we kill off sin because we love Christ and what he did on the cross to pay for our sin; we will not have any real progress in the mortification of our sin.

Lust, as I showed in general, lies in the heart of everyone, even the best, while he lives; and think not that the Scripture speaks in vain, that it is subtle, cunning, crafty--that it seduces, entices, fights, rebels. (p. 88)

Sin or lust is a formidable enemy and it takes constant vigilance to mortify lust in all its forms.