Chapter 5, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

Deception has one specific target that it seeks to trick. Lies work on your mind.

Lundgaard pictures the deception of sin like the deception of a fisherman. Sin disguises all that is harmful about sin (the hook) underneath what is desirable about sin (the worm).

I was tricked recently into thinking that keeping some information from a close friend of mine until the “right time" was OK. I reasoned that this information will cause this person stress, so I’ll wait a little while to bring it up.

Causing my friend and myself anxiety and stress (the hook of sin) was hidden underneath a desire to keep the peace (the worm of sin).

This sin is called the fear of man and it was used to get me to believe and like the lie that keeping that information from a friend that needed to be known was a good thing. When that happened, my will assented and I said nothing. This is a very common deception I fall for, and one that I am desperately seeking to change.

When our minds believe sin’s deception, it doesn’t see what sin is or it’s consequences so that the mind makes a false judgment that the sin is actually OK.

Once the protection your mind gives against sin is “dragged away,” your emotions / affections are “enticed” to sin and your will “conceives” or chooses to sin, “carrying out what the mind said was good and the affections hungered for” (56-58).

This is the “strategy” or the “scheme” the flesh uses to tempt you to sin.

The bad news is that, as we’ve seen before, the flesh never rests. It is always plotting and seeking to carry out it’s deception on you in your life.

This is why the author says that we’re dealing with an enemy who is better understood as the never-sleeping “con man within” (57).