Chapter 8 · 2 min read · 3 min listen
All of It, Not Just One
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” — Psalm 139:23–24 (KJV)
Owen now gives an important rule, and it might surprise you. If you only fight the one sin that is bothering you, and ignore the rest of your life, you won’t beat it.
He describes someone who is really troubled by one sin. They pray against it, groan over it, beg to be free. But in other areas, like prayer, reading the Bible, and how they treat people, they are careless. Owen says: that person will never defeat the sin they are worried about.
Why? Because of the reason they are fighting it. Owen says the real reason is often self-love. The sin is making them feel bad, so they want it gone. But other sins that don’t make them feel bad, they are happy to keep. Owen speaks to such a person directly:
“These are no less sins and evils than those under which thou groanest. Jesus Christ bled for them also. Why dost thou not set thyself against them also?”
Then he says what should really be underneath our fight against sin:
“Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification.”
In other words, we should fight sin not just because it makes us feel guilty or might get us into trouble, but because it is wrong, because it grieves God, and because Jesus died for it.
Owen uses a medical picture. If someone has a sore caused by an unhealthy body, putting cream on the sore won’t cure it. They need to look after their whole health. In the same way, if you want to beat one sin, look after your whole walk with God.
That is why the prayer in Psalm 139 is so good. Instead of only asking God to fix one problem, you invite him to search your whole heart.
One thing to do this week: pray Psalm 139:23–24 every day this week. Ask God to show you any sin you have been ignoring because it doesn’t bother you. Write down what comes to mind and bring it to him too.
Questions to think about
Think it through first — then tap a question to see one way to answer it.
Why won’t fighting only one troubling sin work, according to Owen?
Because if we are careless in the rest of our walk with God, our fight is driven by self-love, and the sin will not be truly mortified.
What should lie underneath our fight against sin?
Hatred of sin as sin, not just because it troubles us, and a sense of Christ’s love on the cross.
What picture does Owen use about a sore and an unhealthy body?
Treating only the sore won’t cure it if the whole body is unhealthy; we must care for our whole walk with God.
Chapter 8 complete
All of It, Not Just One