The Enemy Within

by Mike Ratliff

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:22-24 ESV)

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8 ESV)

Both passages above were written by the Apostle Paul. The former was written early in his ministry while the latter was written as he prepared to be executed by the Romans. This spiritual maturity should be our goal as Christians. To mature this radically requires a lifelong process of knowing and defeating the enemy each of has within. As many of you know, I am a big fan of Puritan John Owen and his works Indwelling Sin and The Mortification of Sin. I have recommended these works to many of those reading this right now. However, there is a problem. John Owen, unlike John Bunyan of the same era, wrote in a form of Seventeenth Century English that could best be described as ponderous. However, God is good to His people. In 1998 Kris Lundgaard was given the task of writing a comparable teaching volume to these great works, but in modern day English. That work is titled The Enemy Within. It has a subtitle of “Straight Talk About The Power And Defeat of Sin.”