Wake Up!

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law

of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the

law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Romans 7:21-23

So you’re sitting in your recliner in your living room and you’re watching the TV. You’re learning all sorts of

information on your routine mental diet of the daily news and Animal Planet. You’ve been watching for

hours, just like you do every day, and you’re pretty clued in on world events and shark week. Obviously,

news rarely comes a neutral place. Nonetheless, you sit there and you rant and rave back to your TV like

you’re practically another news anchor or the next Steve Irwin. All of this is taking place while your

house is on fire. Here’s the problem, though: you’re so absorbed in what you’re learning that you’re

completely oblivious to what’s taking place under your own roof. You learn and learn all while your house

is burning up and you’re soon going to be consumed with everything else there.

I have just painted to you what most Christianity looks like. All sorts of intellectual advancement, activity,

involvement, and yet a stark unawareness of the sin that so often masters us, even if its power is broken

in salvation. We sleep to the sin within; we sleep to the Devil without; we sleep to the world’s allure and

wish for what everyone else is pursuing…and the house burns while we watch the tube.

This afternoon, I began reading some of John Owen’s book “Indwelling Sin in Believers,” at least the

updated and abridged version. John Owen was a very good theologian of the Puritan times and I would

highly recommend the five-volume set put out by Banner of Truth (it’s a green hardback set). The

particular book I’m referring to opens up by speaking much about the law of sin within us, a law being a

natural inclination to fulfill something. Think of it like this: a dog barks because that’s the dog’s nature,

isn’t it? Lesson within a lesson here: when we take a cat (unbeliever) and try to get them to live like a dog

(believer), they may try barking and chasing cars for a little, but it’s inevitable that the cat’s going to go

back to acting like a cat. A sin nature and a new nature form the most compelling instinct within us to

either serve sin or pursue Jesus. Unfortunately, it’s not one or the other for a Christian this side of eternity;

we will battle the old nature moment by moment, but take heart, God knows this and gives us grace and

mercy along the way. The battle does not take away our salvation, but it may do more to point to it.

Though the power of sin is broken in salvation, the law of it is not. Paul speaks of this in Romans 7 and

shows us that though saved, this law of sin within is present and warring against the law of the mind,

bringing (us) into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. It didn’t go away at salvation,

though its dominion ended.

Every day you and I wake up with an active sin nature, and if we’re not careful, we completely ignore that

fact. We live unaware, comforting ourselves with being saved and yet not watching, not praying, not

fighting that sin much of the time. Peter speaks of the Devil in 1 Peter 5:8 by saying, “Be sober, be

vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

You know what that says to us? It says that those who live drunken on their desires and carelessly as

though no harm could befall them are easy prey. That’s absolutely true, too, for people with their own sin

natures: when we live unaware of the sin within, we stand to be easily led by it.

A story I heard once in a John MacArthur sermon went something like this: a man got saved and after a

while, he came to his pastor and was greatly troubled. “Pastor, before I got saved, I felt so much more at

ease. Now that I’m saved, I feel worse and worse about my sin all the time!” The pastor responded, “If

you put a 400 pound weight on a dead man’s chest, would he feel it?” Think about that. The grace of God

in your life has woken you up to your sin, and the Holy Spirit nags at us because of life, not because of

spiritual deadness. Conviction is a gift from God, not a punishment to the spiritually dead. Nevertheless, it

is quite possible that we go through hard times or prosperous times only to forget the sin within and the

Devil without. When we live like this, we begin to fall prey and start believing these lies and doubting

God’s word and His love.

Perhaps today you should consider that bravery may be fading in you at times because you are not

watching, praying, seeking God and living in an awareness of the enemies of your soul. I can “sleep” to

my sin and I can “sleep” to God, and so can you. The Christian life is absolutely miserable when you’re

trying to “sleep” in an effort to navigate circumstances. So hear me out today: wake up! Wake up to your

sin nature, wake up to the spiritual warfare you’re in, and wake up to the Lord Jesus Christ who died to

set you free and give you a hope in Heaven. If you’re a Christian, that’s where you’re headed. Be brave.

Be blessed. Wake up.

Sam Stringer

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by

permission. All rights reserved.