Recognizing the Sinfulness of Sin; Thomas Brooks, Part 2

We’re continuing our series summarizing Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. You can read part 1 HERE.  The outline comments are all quotes or near paraphrases from Brooks. I do a little amateur commentating on many of them. I’m hoping we can dialogue even more than usual in the comments section. What thought is particularly convicting, encouraging, or helpful for you?

For those who missed last week’s post, Thomas Brooks was an English non-conformist Puritan preacher and author (1608-1680). His book is a Puritan form of C.S. Lewis’ famous The Screwtape Letters, exposing how Satan works and entraps earnest believers. Brooks points out Satan’s lies and traps, and then offers counterpoints to equip Christians to withstand these attacks. The “numbered” points are “Satan’s devices” (tactics), and the “Remedies” are Brooks’ suggestions for overcoming each spiritual falsehood.

Satan tempts us to flirt with sin, thinking we can resist it.

Intellectually, it’s difficult for a believer to jump headfirst into sin. Satan knows this, so he encourages us to “flirt” with sin, knowing that a long period of flirtation can break down our spiritual defenses and lead to an actual fall.

Remedies:

Dwell on the Scriptures that tell us to flee from sin and stay far from it.

The Bible is clear that we have no business even hanging around sin, much less flirting with it.

ii. There is no conquest of sin without the soul turning from the occasion to sin.

iii. The great saints ran from the temptation to sin as if they were running from hell itself.

One of the things that marks a saint as a saint is that she or he recognizes the sinfulness of sin and does all they could to avoid it. They aren’t looking for ways to befriend sin or walk as closely to the line as God might allow. For the saints, running from sin is simply running from hell, which makes a lot of sense.

iv. Avoiding the occasion to sin is itself an act of grace.

Walking away from sin is every bit as much an act of grace as receiving forgiveness for our sin when we fall. Grace should build moral strength, not serve moral weakness.

Satan speaks to us of the enjoyment of sin and the miseries we avoided while we walked in our sin.

Satan tries to get us to remember the momentary pleasure of sin, and how sometimes it even seemed to serve us (such as temporarily removing the pain or providing initial enjoyment). He also may try to lure us with the knowledge that by agreeing with the world’s view that sin isn’t really sin, we might be spared from popular criticism and censure. But this is all a lie, as the remedies show.

Remedies:

You can’t determine anyone’s standing before God by looking at their outward blessings

You can’t tell how highly favored anyone is by God by whether they are wealthy, healthy, popular and at ease. Jeremiah was one of the most faithful saints of all time and was brutally persecuted. Jesus lived the most obedient life of anyone and was homeless until he was crucified.

Nothing provokes God’s wrath and anger more than using His goodness and mercy as an excuse or license to sin wickedly

“This is wickedness at the height—for a man to be very bad, because God is very good.”

The worst affliction is to have no affliction in your sin; that means the physician has given up the patient as dead.

If you ever get to the point where you can “comfortably” sin, you are in a very dangerous place, spiritually. God sends His conviction to those He is bringing back. A lack of conviction could be an early sign of spiritual death.

Wicked men lack more than they enjoy.

Wicked people focus on their sinful pleasure, not realizing how much spiritual joy, peace, assurance, power, etc. that they forfeit because of their sin. Their sin is costing them far more than they realize. They look only at what sin gives them, not what it takes away.

Remember that the outward condition of the wicked isn’t a true picture of inner turmoil.

Blatant sinners may brag about their ways, but we can’t see the sleeplessness, the lack of peace, and the inner turmoil and spiritual fear that they try so hard to hide.

vi.        God often sets up the wicked to bring them down.

vii.       God often plagues and punishes with spiritual rather than temporal punishments.

Wicked men will have to give an account for all the good they have enjoyed.Satan points out the “crosses, losses, reproaches, sorrows, and sufferings, which daily attend those who walk in the ways of holiness.”

Satan wants us to think about all we have seemingly “given up” for God, and how following Christ is so costly that, in the end, it’s not worth it.  

Remedies:

“All the afflictions that attend the people of God are such as shall turn to their profit and glorious advantage.” 

This section is filled with quote gems such as these:

“Afflictions are a crystal glass, wherein the soul has the clearest sight of the ugly face of sin.”

“God’s house of correction is his school of instruction.”

According to Brooks, afflictions are a necessary part of our development, not something to be feared or hated. They are acts of love on God’s part, tools used to perfect His people. Far from afflictions turning us away from God, they are reminders of how much he loves us.

ii. Afflictions of the saints reach their worse part, but they don’t hurt the most noble part.

iii. The saints’ afflictions are short and momentary.

iv.  The afflictions of the saints proceed from God’s love. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Rev. 3:19).

I loved this line in particular: “God had one Son without corruption—but no son without correction.”

Saints shouldn’t measure afflictions by the hurt they cause, but by the ultimate good they produce in the soul.

You don’t judge labor by its pain, but by the baby who is born. You don’t judge an exercise by how much it hurts but by the muscles that it builds.  

vi. God allows afflictions only to try us, not to hurt us or ruin us.

vii. In the end, the afflictions of sin and wickedness are far worse than the ways of holiness.

An honest student of human experience will realize that sin is its own curse. It causes more pain, more disquiet and wrecks more relationships than following God ever will.

Satan tempts us to compare our lot with those who seem more wicked than us.

Remedies:

The greatest proof of a hypocrite is to miss the log in his eye as he points out the splinter in another’s eye.

God doesn’t grade “on a curve.” My neighbor’s sin has absolutely no bearing on how God views me or how sin affects my particular soul. It’s no better to be the least guilty murderer on death row—you’re still a murderer, and you’re still on death row. So don’t let the sins of others make you feel good about your “lesser” level of sin.

ii. Spend more time comparing your life with the rule of Scripture rather than comparing yourself to others.

iii. Even if your sins aren’t as bad as others, without repentance from them you will face the same damnation, though perhaps not the same torment.

Satan fills the mind of men with dangerous errors, lies about God, Scripture and truth

When Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and begins Philippians 4:8 by telling us to fix our minds on whatever is true, and Jesus calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life, it’s clear that the mind is an essential component of spiritual transformation. When we start to believe lies, we will soon start to live lies.

Remedies:

An erroneous, vain mind is as odious to God as a wicked life.

To be undisciplined in your mind is every bit as harmful as not taking care of your body, gambling away your finances, or gluttonously eating away your health.

ii. “Receive the truth affectionately, and let it dwell in your souls plenteously.”

iii. Doctrinal errors will cost us dearly.

                  Ignorance is very expensive, spiritually speaking.

iv. “Hate and reject all those doctrines and opinions which are contrary to godliness, and which open a door to profaneness, and all such doctrines and opinions which require men to hold forth a strictness above what the Scripture requires.”

Teachers can fall off either end: being lackadaisical about godly living, or putting false restrictions and burdens on people.

Hold fast to the truth. 

“It is better to let go of anything, rather than truth! It is better to let go, of your honors and riches, your friends and pleasures, and the world’s favors; yes, your nearest and dearest relations, yes, your very lives—than to let go of the truth.”

vi. Stay humble.

vii. Remember all the great evils that doctrinal error has produced.

Choosing wicked company

If we hang around wicked people, our sensitivity to sin will be gradually weakened until sin no longer seems sinful. This is Satan’s “long game,” slowly taking us back from enjoying life in Christ by gradually breaking down our discernment of what is truly beautiful and holy and true.

Remedies:

Remember all the Scriptures that tell us to shun “the society of the wicked” (Eph. 5:11; Prov. 5:14-16; 1 Cor. 5:9-11; 2 Thess. 3:6: Prov. 1:10-15).

ii.           Remember that the company of the wicked is very infectious.

iii.          Consider the disparaging names Scripture gives to the wicked: bears, dragons, dogs, wolves.

iv.          Don’t forget how much wicked people caused grief and burdens to fall on many of the saints now living in heaven.

If you’d like to order Thomas Brooks book for yourself, click HERE.

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