Gospel Prism

I’ve been reading this wonderful book by John Owen. His insights are quite extraordinary. Here is one example of the fight against sin by our own natural will and strength:

This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but he has no strength for the battle. He must fight, but he can never conquer. He is like a man who thrusts himself on the sword of the enemy on the purpose to be slain. The law drives him on, and then sin beats him back. Sometimes he thinks she has foiled sin, but he has only raised a dust, so that he cannot see the sin. He stirs up his natural affections of fear, sorrow, and anguish, and this makes him believe that sin is conquered when it is not even touched. He soon must be at the battle again, and the lust which he thought to be slain is seen to be not even wounded. (John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2004), 20).