Stop It Early

“Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” — Mark 14:38 (KJV)

Now Owen gets very practical. Two of his best pieces of advice are about watching and stopping sin early.

First, he says, think about what occasions and opportunities your sin usually uses, and watch against them all. When does your temptation usually come? When you’re alone? Late at night? With certain people? When you’re bored, tired, stressed or lonely? On certain apps? Jesus told his disciples to watch and pray so that they would not enter into temptation.

This is common sense, but we often ignore it. If you know you always give in to a certain temptation when your phone is in your room at night, the wise thing is not to keep it there and hope for the best. Change the situation.

Second, Owen says:

“Rise mightily against the first actings of thy distemper, its first conceptions; suffer it not to get the least ground.”

“Distemper” was Owen’s word for a sinful habit, like a sickness of the soul. He is saying: fight the temptation at the very first moment. Don’t let it get any ground at all.

He warns against a particular trick we play on ourselves: “Do not say, ‘Thus far it shall go, and no farther.’ If it have allowance for one step, it will take another.” We think we can let a temptation in a little way and stop it before it goes too far. But Owen says that almost never works.

He compares sin to water in a channel. Once it breaks out, it will run its course. It is much easier to stop it starting than to stop it once it has started.

So when a tempting thought first comes, don’t play with it. Don’t open the door “just a crack”. Turn away straight away, pray, and do something different. The first few seconds are where most battles are won.

One thing to do this week: this week, identify your top two danger situations for temptation. Make one practical change to each, such as moving your phone, changing your route, or avoiding a certain group chat, and practise saying no in the first few seconds.