I just learned about this book by Kris Lundgaard as I was listening to a teaching series by Dr. Carl Trueman on the mortification of sin. He recommended it as a contemporary version of John Owen’s work (Owen’s work is likely the most authoritative the church has known).
I have read the initial 3 chapters and wanted to share some of that in a post, to acquaint readers with it.
I have struggled to understand Owen’s work and found it extremely difficult to understand. Lundgaard’s book is taking ideas like Owen’s and making them very easy to understand.
If you want to learn how to deal effectively with your sins, then this book has something for you.
The following excerpts are from chapter one; the missing portions are less significant, yet they are very useful. My purpose is to provide enough to whet your appetite to buy the book if you are looking for help in your battle against sin.
Lundgaard is an entertaining writer, that is, he makes the subject as interesting and as relevant as anyone could in discussing such a weighty material; also, his book is only 157 pages long.
He introduced the topic and provided an example wherein he displaced his feelings onto his children which caused him guilt. Then he talked about a passage in Romans 7 and introduced 4 truths about sin based on that. That is where the following begins.
Book:
When I read Romans 7, I am consoled that Paul felt the same way too.1 He helps me understand my madness and gives me some juicy theological terms for it: “the law of sin” (Romans 7:23), “this body of death” (verse 24), “my sinful nature” (“my flesh” in many translations, verse 18), “sin living in me” (verse 17), just plain “sin” (verse 11), and “the law of sin and death” (8:2). Theologians like to call it “indwelling sin.”2 Whatever we call it, it’s an enemy of God and of our souls.3 The reason for this book is that the first step to fighting this enemy is to know it—and to know it well. The foundation of our knowledge of the power of indwelling sin in the life of a believer is laid in Paul’s own experience. He slugged his way through the fight till, at times, he was on the ropes, crying out from the edge of defeat (Romans 7:23–24). Yet when the bell rang, he stood with his foot on the neck of his enemy, and held up his hand to receive the crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:7–8).
Four Key Truths
If we want to stand in conquest over our bleeding flesh, we’ll have to follow Paul into the fight. When we do, we’ll find the same four truths that humbled him in battle, all expressed in one verse:
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (Romans 7:21) 1. Sin living in us is a “law.” The “law” Paul refers to is the same thing he calls “sin living in me” in verses 20 and 23. This is the indwelling sin we are talking about. Why call it a law? Paul uses “law” as a metaphor. He needs a way to express the power, authority, constraint, and control that sin wields in our lives, and he picks “law” with a touch of irony. He has been writing earlier in the chapter of God’s law, which is supposed to rule our lives, yet the law of sin seems to win a lot of head-to-head battles. Could he have chosen a more stunning contrast to unmask sin’s deadly force? Chew on the metaphor of law for a minute. We can think of it in one way as a moral rule that directs and commands us to do what it requires (“Honor your parents”) or not do what it forbids (“Do not trespass”). More than that, a law entices us to obey with offers of reward (“you will live long in the land”) and compels us to submit by threats of punishment for disobedience (“$500 fine for trespassing”). We can also think of law in the way we speak of “laws of nature.” Gravity, for example, is a law that bends things in its direction. It perfectly conforms us to its “commands.” Gravity is not a law as an idea or an outward precept, but a force that can make objects “obey” its “will.” In this sense every urge and inclination in us is a law. Hunger is a law, thirst, sexual drive, fear—each impels us to fulfill its demands, and each brings a force to bear on us to bow us into submission.
Indwelling sin works like this—enticing, threatening, even bullying. So Paul calls it a law to get us to see that it is powerful even in the lives of believers and that it constantly works to press us into its evil mold.
That raises the question, “In what sense has Christ defeated sin in the believer?” The answer is that he has overthrown its rule, weakened its power, and even killed its root so that it cannot bear the fruit of eternal death in a believer. Still—and this is amazing but true—sin is sin; its nature and purpose remain unchanged; its force and success still grab us by the throat.4
- We find this law inside us. Paul had heard horror stories about sin all his life. He had seen countless bony fingers waving in his face to warn him of sin’s power. But in Romans 7:21 he moved from cozy theory into troubling experience: he found this law. It is one thing to sit in a group and critique dissertations on original sin; it is something else to find yourself subdued by its strength and madness. It is one thing to listen to a lecture about AIDS—how it spreads, what it does to a body, how invincible it is; it is another thing to hear your doctor say to you, “HIV-positive—I’m sorry.”
Few people have come to terms with the law of sin. If more people had, we would hear more complaints of it in prayers, see more struggling against it, and find less of its fruit in the world. When we find this law in us, Paul’s “Who shall deliver me?” echoes down our bones.
Believers are the only people who ever find the law of sin at work in them. Unbelievers can’t feel it. The law of sin is a raging river, carrying them along; they cannot measure the force of the current, because they have surrendered themselves to it and are borne along by it. A believer, on the other hand, swims upstream—he meets sin head-on and strains under its strength.
- We find this law when we’re at our best. As powerful as this law of sin is, it doesn’t rule the heart of the believer. Paul found it at work in him even while he wanted to do good. He didn’t stumble onto it in a time of great backsliding, or when he was indifferent about the things of God. He was aware of it even when he most wanted to serve God, when he set his mind to obey his Savior and King, when Christ ruled his heart. Though the law of sin works from the inside and ambushes believers at their best, it isn’t their dictator. Believers march to a different Drummer: “I want to do good,” Paul says (Romans 7:21)—I want to please God, give him glory, serve his people, honor his name. By God’s grace the desire to obey him ordinarily prevails in us, even against this insidious enemy within.5
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This law never rests. Since grace rules the believer’s heart, he wants to do good. We can describe that desire in two ways. First, there is his general and constant desire to please God (verse 18). Second, there are times when the believer has a particular duty in mind that he wants to perform, such as private prayer or giving a tenth of his income to God (“When I want to do good”— verse 21). The law of sin opposes both.
The “law of sin and death” is in a constant tug of war against the believer’s overall desire to please God (verses 14–25). But sin goes further: when the believer sets his jaw to even the simplest duty to God, sin fights him right at that point (“Evil is right there with me”— verse 21), making him drowsy or distracted when he would pray, or stingy and ambitious when he would tithe.
Don’t you sometimes feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Every believer who is also a sinner (which is every believer) does. “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17).
Who shall deliver me?
Wise Up
We are at the beginning of obedience to God. To understand these four truths about indwelling sin is to arm yourself against it. In your struggle against sin, there is only one thing more important to grasp than these four facts: the free, justifying grace of God in Christ’s blood. The grace of God in Christ and the law of sin are the two fountains of all your holiness and sin, joy and trouble, refreshment and sorrow. If you are to walk with God and glorify him in this world, you need to master both….
End of excerpt
Lundgaard, Kris. The Enemy Within: Straight Talk About the Power and Defeat of Sin (p. 10). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Book Highlight from P&R books, with endorsements and a very brief author bio:
THE ENEMY WITHIN: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THE POWER AND DEFEAT OF SIN BY KRIS LUNDGAARD
160 pages | P&R Direct Price: $9.99 $7.50 | Mobi: $6.99 | ePub: $6.99
ABOUT
How would you like to fight an enemy who, just as you have him on the ropes, always evades the final blow? An enemy who hides just out of reach, lulling you into a fall sense of security, until he drops from nowhere onto your back?
That’s the advantage of indwelling sin—it lurks in an unsearchable fortress where you can’t get to it. But if God has redeemed us from sin—and given us his Holy Spirit to sanctify us and give us strength against sin—why do we go on sinning?
Drawing from two masterful works by English theologian John Owen, Kris Lundgaard takes aim at the enemy within. He shares his discovery of hope, renewed love for Christ, an approach to holiness by faith in him.
ENDORSEMENTS
“. . . fresh, contemporary, highly readable. Every Christian who is serious about holiness should read this book.”—Jerry Bridges
“Kris Lundgaard has done the impossible. He has given us some of the best of Puritan theology in a language all of us can understand. . . . will challenge you to radical spiritual transformation!”—Richard L. Pratt, Jr.
“. . . a solid reminder that apart from the grace of God we are far weaker than we can imagine—but greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.”—Bryan Chapell
“Kris Lundgaard has given us a delightful book. It is honest, real, and, best of all, hopeful.”—Steve Brown
THE AUTHOR
Kris Lundgaard has a varied background: technical writer, computer programmer, pastor, and test-engineering manager. Since 2007, he and his wife, Paula, have served with Mission to the World in Slovakia. They have four married children and seven grandchildren.
Featured Image from: BOOK HIGHLIGHT — The Enemy Within: Straight Talk About the Power and Defeat of Sin by Kris Lundgaard – P&R (prpbooks.com)