Book Review: The Enemy Within

Romans 7:19-21 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

What is the nature of Sin? Sin is likened to a rhinoceros in a restaurant. As G.K. Chesterson says, "If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever." It is the same as in the body of the believer, God has promised us with His son Jesus Christ that we are free from sin, in fact we are ded to sin! The power f sin leads to death, and the aim of the gospel of grace is to glorify God and free us from the reign of the beast within us. The nature of sin has great contempt for God. And as God's chosen children we are called to exterminate the presence of sin remaining in us. Kris Lungaard writes in his book "The Enemy Within," killing sin is like a student in biology class when the teacher calls the students to dissect a live wolverine. When you go to kill it, there is thrashing and gnawing of teeth. Sin does not want to be killed and yet when you do so it hurts and the battle to do so is long. There are two chief ways to kill the sin within you.

1.) pray to God with God; focus on God for who He is in all His majesty.
2.) read the Word with the Word; the word is the Lord Jesus Christ, and as we read the revealed word we read it with the assistance of the Salvation of our souls.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.