The Enemy Within: Chapter 9 (Pt 1)

So far, Kris Lundgaard's The Enemy Within has described the progression sin hopes to take in us.

First, it attacks our mind with deception. If we believe it, second, it captures our emotions so that we crave the sin we're being deceived with.

Third and last, if we're going to sin, our will has to say "I do." Our will, the choosing faculty in the human soul, has consented to what the mind deemed OK and the emotions desired.

If this happens, we sin.

Now, according to the Bible, when unbelievers consent to sin its "full, absolute, complete, and with deliberation...[so that] the soul plunges into sin like a ship in full sail with the wind at its back" (100). This is not true for a Christian

When a real Christian sins "there is always a secret reluctance" so that when he sins it is like "a ship sailing against the wind--the wind may be stiff or light, perhaps even hardly felt, but it is always there" (101).

Do you feel this when you're about to sin? Do you? If you don't, you may not be a Christian, or, you've trained yourself to ignore the conviction of God's Spirit and the voice of your conscience (if it's informed by God's Word) so that you're unmoved by their warnings.

Either way, you're in big trouble.