08. CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8 UNIVERSAL SINCERITY NEEDED The second general rule proposed Unless we mortify every lust, no single lust will be mortified Partial mortification always comes from a corrupt motive Troubling temptation from a lust is often a punishment for other oversights. The second general rule I propose is this: 2. The 2nd general rule: Strive to mortify ALL lusts, or fail to mortify ANY lust.
(See Chapter 7 for the 1st general rule).
Without being sincere and diligent to mortify all our lusts, we cannot mortify a single lust. The other general rule referred to the person; this rule applies to the sin itself. Let me explain.
Any lust can put a man in the condition described earlier. It is powerful, strong, and severe. It leads him captive, troubles him, disturbs him, and takes away his peace. He cannot bear it, and so he sets himself against it. He prays against it, groans under it, and sighs to be delivered from it. But in the meantime, perhaps, in his other duties, in his constant communion with God, in his reading, prayer, and meditation, or in other ways that are unrelated to the lust that troubles him, he becomes lax and negligent. He should not expect to mortify the lust that bothers him. This is the condition that often plagues men in their pilgrimage. The Israelites, aware of their sin, sought God with diligence and earnestness, with fasting and prayer. They profess their earnestness repeatedly. “They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways; they ask me for the laws of justice; they take delight in approaching God.”115 But God rejects it all. Their fasting is a remedy that will not heal them. The reason given in verses 5-7 is that they were selective in this duty. They attended diligently to that one, but they were negligent and careless in their other duties. Let us say someone contracts a “running sore” through indulgence and bad diet. If the underlying general condition of his body is diseased, then any effort he makes to cure his sore will be in vain. It will not matter how diligently and skillfully he treats the sore itself. It is no different if he tries to stop the bloody issue of sin and filth in his soul. He must be equally careful of his overall spiritual condition. That is because, (1.) This kind of selective mortification is the result of a corrupt motive.
It can never have good results. The correct and acceptable principles of mortification will be emphasized from here on. It is hating sin as sin, not just as a painful or disturbing habit, and comprehending the love of Christ as revealed in the cross, that lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. It is obvious that the selective mortification I speak of is spawned by self-love. You resolve with all diligence and earnestness to mortify a particular lust or sin. What is the reason? It bothers you. It has robbed you of your peace. It fills your heart with sorrow, trouble, and fear. You have no rest because of it. Friend, I suspect you have neglected prayer or reading. You have been conceited and loose in your conversation, or involved in things different than the lust that bothers you. These are no less sinful, and no less evil, than the one causing you pain. Jesus Christ bled for those too. Why not set yourself against them as well?
If you hate sin as sin, and every evil way that grieves and disturbs your soul, then you should be just as watchful against everything that grieves and disturbs the Spirit of God. It is obvious that you struggle against sin merely because of the trouble it causes you. If your conscience was quiet about it, you would let it alone. If it did not bother you, you wouldn’t bother it. Now, do you really think God will put up with such hypocritical endeavors? Do you not think his Spirit will testify to the treachery and falsehood of your spirit? Do you think he will relieve you of what bothers you, so you will be free to pursue something else that grieves him just as much? No, says God. “If he could be rid of this lust, I would never hear from him again. Let him wrestle with it, or he will be lost.” No one should think to do his own work if he will not do God’s work. God’s work consists in universal obedience. To be freed of the present problem is our own work. That is why the apostle writes, “Cleanse yourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”116 If we will do anything, we must do all things. So then, what is acceptable to God is not only an intense opposition to this or that specific lust, but a universally humble frame of heart. We are to be watchful over every evil, and perform every duty.
(2.) God may be using the persistent lust that troubles you to strengthen you.
How do you know that God has not put up with the lust that troubles you in order to strengthen you, gain power over you, and punish you for your other oversights, and for your usual lukewarm walk with him? At least it has awakened you to consider your ways, to be more thorough in the work, and to change the way you walk with him.
Reasons for the predominance of a particular lust. The rage and predominance of a particular lust is usually the result of a careless, negligent course in general, and that is for two reasons:
(1.) As its natural effect
Lust, as I showed in general, lies in the heart of everyone while he lives, even the best of us. Do not think the Scripture is just so many words when it says that sin is subtle, cunning, and crafty, that it seduces and entices us, fights and rebels against us. The heart is the source and the fountain from which flow all the issues of life and death. As long as a man keeps diligent watch over his heart, lust withers and dies in it. But if it breaks its restraints through negligence, it may gain passage to our thoughts through previously suppressed desires. And by these thoughts, perhaps it breaks out into open sin in our life. Its strength is applied to the way out that it has found. It continues to press for release by that same way until it gains open passage. It then annoys and torments us, and will not be easily restrained. This is how a man ends up wrestling with a lust in sorrow all his life that might easily have been prevented by a strict and universal watch.
(2.) As punishment for other sins As I said, God often endures a sin to punish our other oversights. With wicked men, he gives them over to one as the judgment for another, a greater for the punishment of a lesser. He substitutes one that will hold them more securely for one from which they might have escaped.117 So too with his own people, he may leave them with some irksome compulsion to prevent or cure some other evil. That was the case when the messenger of Satan was let loose on Paul so that he “might not be made haughty through extraordinary spiritual revelations.”118 Was it not punishment for Peter’s smug confidence that he was left to deny his Master?
It may be that God often allows this common state of lust to continue. He does so at least to admonish us, maybe to humble us, and perhaps to chasten and correct us for our generally loose and careless walk. If so, is it conceivable that the effect would be removed while the cause continued? That is, could the particular lust be mortified while the general condition remained unreformed? Doubtful. If someone really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortified a disturbing lust, he had better take care to be equally diligent in all aspects of his obedience. He must know that every lust, every omission of duty, is as burdensome to God as it is to him.119 When disloyalty continues in the heart by indulging negligence, and not pressing for universal and perfect obedience, the soul becomes weak. It is not giving faith its whole effort, and so it becomes selfish. It is concerned more with the trouble of sin than the filth and guilt of it. The soul in such a state constantly provokes God. It should not expect a comfortable resolution to a single spiritual duty it undertakes, much less this universal duty under consideration. To accomplish that would require a wholly different attitude.