by Matthew Pinson | Nov 10, 2021
I often use the old General/Free Will Baptist phrase “ordinary means of grace” to describe the cherished methods of ministry the Spirit wants the church to use to bring a people to himself and fit them for His eternal kingdom. So I was elated when the recent 9Marks Journal was on the topic “The Ordinary Means of Grace—Or, Don’t Do Weird Stuff.”
The language of the ordinary means of grace is another way of saying that the methods God uses to build His church are those of the apostles, which are given by precept and example in Scripture, which is sufficient (enough, all we need) for the church’s doctrine (its theology, what it teaches) and practice (its methods, what it does).
General/Free Will Baptist Uses of the Term
Free Will Baptists in America, in the north and south, as well as their ancestors in England, who were called General Baptists, used the phrase “ordinary means of grace” over and over again. (It was used in the “practices” section of our Treatise, for example, until it was revised in the 1970s).
Again, it is another way of stating two other doctrines: the sufficiency of Scripture (the Bible gives us what the Spirit wants us to have to do church) and apostolicity (the doctrine and practice of the holy apostles is normative for the continuing church).
I discuss this doctrine, which appears in the second sentence of the Treatise (which says Scripture is “a sufficient and infallible rule and guide to salvation and all Christian worship and service”) in my booklet Free Will Baptists and the Sufficiency of Scripture. Randall House has published Rob Rienow’s defense of the sufficiency of Scripture in his book Reclaiming the Sufficiency of Scripture [1].
Early Puritans and Baptists
The language of the ordinary means of grace became famous when it appeared in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC). Though this catechism was a Calvinist Puritan catechism, the answer to question 88 on the ordinary means of grace would have been answered similarly by any Puritan in the seventeenth century on either side of the Atlantic—whether they were Calvinist or Arminian or Paedobaptist or Baptist. Here it is:
Q: What are the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?
A: The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.
Now of course, Baptists would define “sacraments” differently than the writers of the WSC did. But other than this, they all—again, whether Arminian or Calvinist—agreed wholeheartedly with this statement.
Ordinary Means and “Ordinances”
In fact, one of the particular reasons I like this statement is that it defines ordinances broadly, as I do in my book The Washing of the Saints’ Feet, simply as things God ordains [2]. Though some of us have thrown around the word, Baptists have not articulated a theology of the sacraments, though they have talked about ordinances, but most Calvinist Baptists eventually came to see only baptism and the Lord’s Supper as ordinances.
However, this is an unfortunate case of the evolution of language. “Ordinance” originally was used by everyone in the Puritan sense seen in the WSC, which said that all the ordinances of God were His outward and ordinary means of grace—especially the reading and preaching of the Word, private and public prayer, and the sacraments.
This is why Free Will Baptist forefathers like Thomas Helwys and Thomas Grantham, as well as American Free Will Baptists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—talked about doing only the things God “ordained” or “appointed” in the New Testament.
Renewal through Retrieving the Practice of the Apostles
This is the way of the apostles and their earliest followers after the New Testament era. Retrieving their approach to ministry will bring renewal to the evangelical church, large swaths of which have become addicted to the means and methods of modern secular industries (e.g., marketing, CEO leadership, entertainment).
Sometimes people are confused about this. Only a few people actually claim, “We shouldn’t adhere to the apostolic pattern. That’s not relevant for today.” Very few people veer this far from the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. Instead, many say “But the apostles didn’t have what we have today. If they had had all the methods and techniques we have at our disposal, they would have used them!”
But the fact is that the apostles had the same things at their disposal, but they didn’t use them. They had all the riches of the multi-sensory, entertainment-dominated culture of the Greco-Roman urban centers at their disposal. On a given Sunday, a Christian would walk past the theaters and concert halls and coliseums and games where rich, lavish entertainment was on offer—as well as many street entertainers. The best painting and sculpture was at their disposal.
They had at their disposal the highly efficient organizational methods of the Roman imperial government. They were surrounded by the methods of a highly complex marketplace. Their “competition” in the Greco-Roman mystery religions relied on spine-tingling techniques to draw in crowds in urban centers.
Yet these early Christians relied on the ordinary means of grace. Their churches were simple and counter-cultural, based on the ordinary, unadorned teaching of doctrine in their songs, reading, and preaching, accompanied by compassion for the poor and hurting and an unmistakable, authentic ideal of koinonia and community.
Commending 9Marks
In short, as the 9Marks Journal says, they “didn’t do weird stuff.” I encourage my readers to go read this 9Marks Journal.
We’re not going to agree with everything 9Marks says. But what 9Marks shows us—and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. and its pastor, Mark Dever, and the hundreds of churches that have been planted and revitalized as a result of this ministry—is that it’s possible to have vibrant, growing congregations that minister to diverse age groups and ethnicities in urban, suburban, small-town, and rural demographics that are firmly rooted in the ordinary means of grace, in the sufficiency of Scripture, and in the means and methods of the apostles.
[1] J. Matthew Pinson, Free Will Baptists and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Antioch, TN: Historical Commission, National Association of Free Will Baptists, 2014). It can be ordered here. Rob Rienow, Reclaiming the Sufficiency of Scripture (Nashville: Randall House, 2012). It can be ordered here.
[2] J. Matthew Pinson, The Washing of the Saints’ Feet (Nashville: Randall House, 2006). It can be ordered here
by Matthew Pinson | Jun 22, 2021
Recently Lifeway Research conducted a study on pastors’ views on the value of Protestant denominations and the future of denominations. This study is discussed in an article from Lifeway entitled “Pastors Value Denominations Now, Not as Sure About the Future.”
8 in 10 Pastors Think Denominationalism is Vital
The study, which surveyed pastors in Protestant denominations, had three main findings: First, about 8 in 10 think it’s “vital” to be connected with a denomination. Second, about the same number said their congregation thinks it’s “vital” to be part of denomination. Third, almost two-thirds of pastors surveyed said they believe the value of being part of a denomination will “diminish” in the next decade.
These findings may or may not surprise Free Will Baptist pastors. But there’s another finding in the study that I think will surprise the vast majority of Baby Boomer and Gen-X Free Will Baptist pastors, but which isn’t surprising to me because my work revolves around young adult Free Will Baptists who are preparing for ministry every day of my life.
Young Pastors Are More Apt to Say Denominationalism Is Vital
The finding I think many will find surprising is this:
Younger pastors are more apt to say denominational identity is “vital to them personally,” and least likely to say that the importance of denominational identity will decrease in the future.
The older the pastor in the survey, the less likely that pastor was to affirm the importance of denominations. For example, 24% of pastors over 65 disagreed that denominations were personally vital to their congregations, while only 16% of those ages 18 to 34 disagreed. Similar responses came back regarding what younger and older pastors thought about how important denominational identity will be in the future.
(Another finding I found interesting—and relevant to Welch, since we just started our M.Div. program and are planning to put our M.A. program in theology and ministry online—is that pastors with master’s degrees were the ones in the survey who in greatest numbers (81%) said their congregations valued their participation in their denomination most highly. 72% of those with bachelor’s degrees affirmed this, and 68% without a college degree affirmed it.)
Data Piling Up about Young People and the Church
These findings add to the myriads of data piling up that upend our presumptions concerning younger people and that the only way they’ll come to or stay in church, or faith in Christ, is if we appeal to the consumer sensibilities of youth culture in our worship and church programming. As all the sociological research shows—from more popular sources like LifeWay, Barna, and Answers in Genesis, to more scholarly sources like Pew, the Fuller Youth Study, and sociologists such as Christian Smith, Melissa Lundquist Denton, and others—Millennials and Gen-Zers are more open to tradition, doctrine, depth and substance in preaching and teaching and singing, intergenerational mentorship, and the list goes on.
Rainer, Ham, Kinnaman on Why Young People are Leaving the Church
This research, seen for example in Thom Rainer’s Essential Church, Ken Ham’s Already Gone, and David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, shows that young people are leaving all sorts of churches at the same rates—large and small, urban and rural, contemporary and traditional, charismatic and liturgical.
As with the more general surveys of adults by people like Barna and Rainer, these studies of younger people show that the reason they’re leaving the church has little to do with stylistic factors and everything to do with the lack of solid teaching, the lack of intergenerationality and mentoring across the generations, the lack of love and community, and what they see as hypocrisy in the church. Church style is way down the list and is usually not listed as a factor at all.
Again, these studies are also undergirded by more academic sociological studies by scholars such as Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton, whose results support David Kinnaman’s conclusion that
“After countless interviews and conversations, I am convinced that historic and traditional practices, and orthodox and wisdom-laden ways of believing, are what the next generation really needs.”
—David Kinnaman, CEO, Barna Group
Millennial Preferences in Church Architecture
This is even confirmed by Millennial preferences in church architecture. A few years ago, the Barna Group conducted a study for one of the largest church architectural firms in the country, which wanted to know what style of church architecture Millennials preferred. When shown pictures of the “stage” or “platform” as well as the outside of traditional and modern church buildings, two-thirds of Millennials preferred traditional structures over modern ones.
This is not to argue, of course, for a “sanctified” architecture. It simply shows that many of our assumptions about what “the young folks” will actually prefer have been overturned by the Millennial generation, and similar preliminary reports are coming out of the even more secularized Generation Z.
Fuller Youth Institute, Growing Young
These same sorts of considerations continue to be borne out by the research. For example, the Fuller Youth Institute’s latest study, Growing Young: 6 Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church, lists the top ten qualities churches don’t need to “grow young”:
- A certain size (young people don’t care whether a church is large or small)
- A trendy location or region
- An exact age (young people don’t care whether a church is old or newly planted)
- A popular denomination . . . or lack of denomination (young people aren’t negative on denominations)
- An off-the-charts cool quotient (“For young people today, relational warmth is the new cool.”)
- A big modern building
- A big budget
- A “contemporary” worship service
- A watered-down teaching style
- A hyper-entertaining ministry program (“We don’t have to compete. . . . Slick is no guarantee of success.”)
Don’t Underestimate Our Younger Ministers
Count on it: The reformation of Protestant faith and practice in the Free Will Baptist Church is not going to come from my generation. It’s going to come from the Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) and, even more, Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012).*
They tend to be more interested in doctrine and theology, depth in teaching and preaching, transcendence not trendiness in church life, and authenticity and intergenerationality in relationships and community. In short, to use Kinnaman’s words, they’re more interested than you might think in “historic and traditional practices, and orthodox and wisdom-laden ways of believing.”
Don’t underestimate them; don’t write them off; and don’t think you’ve got them figured out.
*Obviously, there is debate about these exact years.
by Matthew Pinson | Apr 13, 2021
A Recent Lawsuit
Two weeks ago, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education. The suit aimed at the Department’s funding of colleges and universities that have policies that prohibit LGBT conduct.
The class action lawsuit named twenty-five conservative religious colleges. Among them were schools such as Baylor, Bob Jones, Westmont, Fuller Seminary, Union, Brigham Young, Liberty, and Lipscomb. Specifically, the suit holds that the Department of Education should not allow such schools to claim religious exemptions to orders and statutes that prohibit discrimination against LGBT individuals.
The timing of this lawsuit is obvious in light of the passage of the Equality Act by the U.S. House and the introduction of that Bill in the U.S. Senate. It represents the careful strategy of the LGBT lobby to silence traditional religious people and their institutions from the public square when their sincerely held religious beliefs mitigate homosexual and transgender identification or behavior.
The Advance against First Amendment Freedoms
Free Will Baptists need to know how serious this state of affairs is. Most of the evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, Mormon, Jewish, and Muslim colleges, universities, and K-12 schools that hold traditional views on sexuality and gender have students who receive funding from the federal government. Most such schools would be forced to close their doors if their students were deprived of these funds, since such students could no longer afford to attend these institutions.
This situation represents the first in what would be a long line of attempts by the secular left to drive these institutions out of operation. LGBT rights groups have made plain their intentions not to stop with Title IV funding from the U.S. Department of Education but to continue toward the removal of tax exemption, the removal of all forms of federally recognized accreditation, and more.
In short, this powerful lobby believes that policies that preclude LGBT conduct are the same as excluding people on the basis of racial or ethnic identity. If this approach takes hold in the wider political culture, soon all non-profit institutions that hold traditional beliefs on sexual morality and gender identity will be deprived of their historic First Amendment rights to the free exercise of their religion.
What Can I Do?
What can an ordinary Free Will Baptist do? you might ask.
Educate Yourself
First, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the current conversation on these issues. One helpful resource is Dr. Albert Mohler’s “The Briefing.”
Also helpful is the Alliance Defending Freedom, (ADF) the legal organization that has successfully argued so many religious liberty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. This organization provided legal counsel for Welch College in 2019 when the college came under fire for its traditional Christian stance on sexuality and gender. I strongly recommend ADF.
Other good organizations defending religious liberty and providing helpful resources on these issues include Dr. David Black and the Religious Liberty Coalition and David Gibbs III and the National Center for Life and Liberty.
Exercise Your Rights as a Citizen in a Representative Democracy
Another thing you can do is to exercise your influence as a citizen by kindly and humbly communicating with your U.S. representatives and senators, as well as your state legislators. You can keep them informed of the impact of the Equality Act and similar initiatives on the very existence of traditional religious nonprofits. This includes colleges, universities, K-12 schools, and thousands of other religious nonprofits that save the state billions of dollars each year in costly educational and social services.
Political engagement exists in the context of broader cultural engagement and stewardship and does not function in a vacuum. Yet we have the ability to exercise the rights of our citizenship in a democratic republic that governs through representative democracy.
Unfortunately, the religious liberty community does not have as loud of a voice as other liberal or conservative interest groups. Take for example the LGBT lobby or the environmental lobby or even the business or gun rights or pro-life lobbies. Elected representatives are kept apprised of what those groups deem important. It’s incumbent on religious believers to communicate their concerns about religious liberty to their elected representatives on the federal and state levels.
Particularly, traditional religious people need to make their elected representatives aware of the effect the Equality Act would have on religious liberty. It would be the most sweeping legislation threatening religious freedom in the history of the U.S. If the act were passed, most traditional colleges, schools, social service agencies, and other non-profits sponsored by traditional churches, denominations, synagogues, mosques, etc., simply could not survive.
For example, the accreditation of traditional religious colleges, schools, and seminaries whose deeply held religious beliefs prohibit their hiring of LGBT individuals and admitting of LGBT students would be endangered. Furthermore, their students’ access to Title IV funds would be eliminated Thus such institutions, which have saved the states multiple billions of dollars educating citizens and community leaders for decades and even centuries, would immediately be forced out of business.
This is because the Equality Act explicitly states that organizations will not be protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. RFRA was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer of New York. Passed unanimously in the U.S. House, with only three dissenting votes in the U.S. Senate, it was eagerly signed by President Bill Clinton. This act guarantees the freedom of conscience for traditional religious people promised in the First Amendment. Yet the Equality Act would do away with RFRA’s protections.
Even elected representatives who do not share our deeply held religious beliefs need to be made aware of the very valuable role traditional religious colleges, K-12 schools, adoption and other social services agencies, and other traditional religious non-profits across the U.S. have long played in our society. They need to be made aware of the existential threat this entire sector is under should the Equality Act pass.
Financial Support
Importantly, concerned churches and individuals can increase their charitable giving to institutions like Welch College. Christian colleges and universities stand to lose the most the fastest as a result of the momentum the LGBT lobby is gaining.
Christian higher education, quite simply, faces an existential threat, and the only thing that will ultimately sustain it is the financial support of its denominational, church, alumni, and donor base. This financial support has never been so important, and its increase is the greatest bulwark against the loss of Title IV funds and tax exemption.
Speak the Truth in Love
Furthermore, we must continue to speak the truth in love. Love is the final apologetic, as Francis Schaeffer used to say. And if we are not careful to love individuals whose human flourishing and spiritual lives are being harmed by the LGBT ideology, and show that love observably, we will not have the right, spiritually, to speak the truth we say we believe.
In this regard, I highly recommend the writings of Rosaria Butterfield. Butterfield is an evangelical pastor’s wife who used to be a lesbian critical theory professor and came to faith as a result of the humble, hospitable witness of a conservative evangelical pastor and his wife in a small congregation.
This pastor and his wife, and their church, bore witness to the truth of Holy Scripture regarding what kind of sexual identities and relationships honor God and His creative design and foster vital human flourishing. Yet they were loving and kind and hospitable to Butterfield and her friends, who were at the vanguard of the LGBT movement.
Pray
Lastly, pray. Pray that God will provide wisdom for people who are in leadership. Pray that God will help legislators on the federal and state levels to understand what is at stake with the Equality Act and other initiatives that jeopardize the First Amendment rights of every citizen of the United States.
And pray that God will renew faithful churches that confidently teach and model the doctrine and practice the Spirit gives us in His Word, speak the truth in love, and spread the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.
by Matthew Pinson | Dec 16, 2020
My readers have noticed that, some mornings, I have been reading gradually through the Puritan Thomas Brooks’s classic, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. My theological mentor F. Leroy Forlines died yesterday around 3:30 p.m. at ninety-four years of age, and it was fitting that when I sat down to read this morning, my eyes fell on the following words from Thomas Brooks about truth.
Mr. Forlines’s favorite passage of Scripture was John 8:32, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Another passage from the gospel of John aptly describes Leroy Forlines’s life: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Mr. Forlines patterned his life after Christ. So it was characterized by truth but also by grace. Another text that he was fond of along these lines was Ephesians 4:14–15: “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.” Mr. Forlines always bore witness to the truth, but he always spoke it in love.
These texts came vividly to my mind early this morning when I opened Precious Remedies and saw the words below from Brooks. They describe the man who, outside my wife, children, parents, and grandparents, has shaped me more than any other living human being.
Brooks is discussing the eleventh device of Satan “to draw the soul to sin”: “By polluting and defiling the souls and judgments of men with . . . dangerous errors.” Leroy Forlines valiantly spent his life helping us battle this device of Satan. Brooks’s fifth remedy is “Hold fast the truth,” and his sixth is “keep humble.” This is the remedy Leroy Forlines modeled before us, and it is the gospel remedy that holds the cure for our souls and for the ills of our secular age—for believers in Christ to hold fast the truth and keep humble.
Meditate with me on this passage from Brooks that Leroy Forlines would smile on because it is so saturated in the wisdom of Holy Scripture. And meditate on it with the total-personality zeal with which Mr. Forlines would want you to read it—to think deeply, to feel deeply, and to ponder how this truth can transform you. And with it, reminisce about the way in which Mr. Forlines lived out for us and taught us and modeled before us these verities that alone can set us free.
—–
Remedy (5). The fifth remedy against this device of Satan is, To hold fast the truth. As men take no hold on the arm of flesh—until they let go the arm of God (Jer. 17:5); so men take no hold on error until they have let go their hold of truth; therefore hold fast the truth (2 Tim. 1:13, and Titus 1:9). Truth is your crown, hold fast your crown, and let no man take your crown from you. Has not God made truth sweet to your soul, yes, sweeter than honey, or the honeycomb? and will not you go on to heaven, feeding upon truth, that heavenly honeycomb, as Samson did of his honeycomb. Ah, souls, have you not found truth sweetening your spirits, and cheering your spirits, and warming your spirits, and raising your spirits, and corroborating your spirits? Have not you found truth a guide to lead you, a staff to uphold you, a cordial to strengthen you, and a medicine to heal you? And will not you hold fast the truth? Has not truth been your best friend in your worst days? Has not truth stood by you when friends have forsaken you? Has not truth done more for you than all the world could do against you, and will you not hold fast the truth? Is not truth your right eye, without which you cannot see for Christ? And your right hand, without which you cannot do for Christ? And your right foot, without which you cannot walk with Christ? And will you not hold truth fast? Oh! hold fast the truth in your judgments and understandings, in your wills and affections, in your profession and conversation.
Truth is more precious than gold or rubies, “and all the things you can desire are not to be compared to her” (Prov. 3:15). Truth is that heavenly mirror wherein we may see the luster and glory of divine wisdom, power, greatness, love and mercifulness. In this mirror you may see the face of Christ, the favor of Christ, the riches of Christ, and the heart of Christ—beating and working sweetly towards your souls. Oh! let your souls cleave to truth, as Ruth did to Naomi (Ruth 1:15, 16), and say, “I will not leave truth, nor return from following after truth; but where truth goes I will go, and where truth lodges I will lodge; and nothing but death shall part truth and my soul.” What John said to the church of Philadelphia I may say to you, “Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown” (Rev. 3:11). The crown is the top of royalties: such a thing is truth: “Let no man take your crown.” “Hold fast the faithful word,” as Titus speaks. Hold fast as with tooth and nail, against those who would snatch it from us. 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. Oh, keep the truth, and truth will make you safe and happy forever. Blessed are those who are kept by truth. “Though I cannot dispute for the truth, yet I can die for the truth,” said a blessed martyr.
Remedy (6). The sixth remedy against this device of Satan is, To keep humble. Humility will keep the soul free from many darts of Satan’s casting, and erroneous snares of his spreading. As low trees and shrubs are free from many violent gusts and blasts of wind which shake and tear the taller trees, so humble souls are free from those gusts and blasts of error which shake and tear proud, lofty souls. Satan and the world have least power to fasten errors upon humble souls. The God of light and truth delights to dwell with the humble; and the more light and truth dwells in the soul, the further off darkness and error will stand from the soul. The God of grace pours in grace into humble souls, as men pour drink into empty vessels; and the more grace is poured into the soul, the less error shall be able to overpower the soul, or to infect the soul. I have read of one who, seeing in a vision so many snares of the devil spread upon the earth, he sat down mourning, and said within himself, Who shall pass through these? whereupon he heard a voice answering, Humility shall pass through them.
That is a sweet word in Psalm 25:9, “The humble, he will guide in judgment, and the meek he will teach his way.” And certainly souls guided by God, and taught by God, are not easily drawn aside into ways of error. Oh, take heed of spiritual pride! Pride fills our fancies, and weakens our graces, and makes room in our hearts for error. There are no men on earth so soon entangled, and so easily conquered by error—as proud souls. Oh, it is dangerous to love to be wise above what is written, to be curious and unsober in your desire of knowledge, and to trust to your own capacities and abilities to undertake to pry into all secrets, and to be puffed up with a carnal mind. Souls that are thus asoaring up above the bounds and limits of humility, usually fall into the very worst of errors, as experience does daily evidence. The proud soul is like him who gazed upon the moon—but fell into the pit. You know how to apply it.
—-
Leroy Forlines would have loved these sentiments from the pages of Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices. He embodied this union of truth and humility in his own life and work and taught us to do the same. May we continue to emulate his example.
The above scripture texts are from the NASB.
by Matthew Pinson | Nov 7, 2020
I have been reading through the Puritan Thomas Brooks’s classic, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices. It is best taken in sip-by-sip, each morning, as I have been doing. This morning I read about one of Satan’s most effective devices, “Device 7: By making the soul bold to venture upon the occasions of sin.”*
“Saith Satan, You may walk by the harlot’s door though you won’t go into the harlot’s bed; you may sit and sup with the drunkard, though you won’t be drunk with the drunkard; you may look upon Jezebel’s beauty, and you may play and toy with Delilah, though you do not commit wickedness with the one or the other; you may with Achan handle the golden wedge, though you do not steal the golden wedge.”
In ministering to young (and old) people over the years, I have found that this is one of the best specimens of wise counsel the Bible and the Christian tradition give us for avoiding sin: Think carefully, and figure out what situations you get yourself in that predispose you to be tempted, and avoid those situations.
The first remedy against this device, Brooks says, is “to dwell upon those scriptures that do expressly command us to avoid the occasions of sin, and the least appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5. 22): ‘Abstain from all appearance of evil.’ Whatsoever is heterodox, unsound and unsavoury, shun it, as you would a serpent in your way, or poison in your meat.” A few lines down he says, “It was good counsel that Livia gave her husband Augustus: ‘It behoveth thee not only not to do wrong, but not to seem to do so.’”
Quoting Proverbs 5:8, “Remove your way far from her, And do not go near the door of her house,” Brooks counsels: “He that would not be burnt, must dread the fire; he that would not hear the bell, must not meddle with the rope. To venture upon the occasion of sin, and then to pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ is all one as to thrust thy finger into the fire, and then to pray that it might not be burnt.”
The second remedy against this device, Brooks says, is to consider solemnly “that ordinarily there is no conquest over sin, without the soul turning from the occasion of sin.” God will not take temptation out of our path, Brooks warns, unless we turn from the occasion of sin. If you dance near the edge of a pit, he says, you can’t be surprised if you fall in. “He that hath gunpowder about him had need keep far enough from sparkles.” Brooks is right when he says that it’s rare to go up to the brink of sin and not give in to temptation. “He that ventures upon the occasions of sin is as he that would quench the fire with oil, which is a fuel to maintain it, and increase it.”
This godly wisdom reminds me of a Christian counseling book I once read (I can’t remember which one). It told the story of a recovering alcoholic who was in addiction counseling. He walked to work each day, and he had to walk by a liquor store. Each day, he would struggle with intense temptation to go into the liquor store and buy a bottle of his favorite drink. This went on for months. Then one day when walking home from work, he gave in to the temptation, bought the alcohol, and drank it all.
When he told his counselor about it in tears, the counselor said, “You need to take another route to work.” He said, “I can’t. The only other route would take me thirty minutes longer.” The counselor said, “You can. You must, if you really want to beat this.”
Then the author went on to compare the door to the liquor store to the opening of a cave with a dragon inside: The closer you get to the mouth of the cave, the more you are predisposed to being captured by the dragon. So the best advice is to stay away from the mouth of the cave.
Brooks’s other two remedies are just as helpful: Using the example of Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:10), he says: “The third remedy against this device of Satan is, seriously to consider,
that other precious saints, who were once glorious on earth, and are now triumphing in heaven, have turned from the occasion of sin, as hell itself. The fourth remedy is “solemnly to consider, that the avoiding the occasions of sin, is an evidence of grace, and that which lifts up a man above most other men in the world.”
May we pray for grace not to venture boldly upon the occasions of sin, and may we apply ourselves, with God’s help, to adhere to make use of this precious remedy against Satan’s devices every day of our lives
*These quotations are taken from pp. 66–70 of the “Puritan Paperbacks” edition published by Banner of Truth Trust.
