Daniel Hyde of Oceanside United Reformed Church has given a series of lectures on John Owen’s classic work, “The Mortification of Sin.” This is an incredibly important subject if we are to pursue lives of holiness, and Owen’s work is one of the best on the subject. If you wish to buy the book, the best edition is Kapic’s titled Overcoming Sin and Temptation.
Category Archives: Sin
You Can’t, But You Must! Dan Phillips
You may know of Dan Phillips from the Pyromaniacs blog. Well, here is one of his sermons that he preached at Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church in Elk Grove, California. His text is Matthew 26:41.
Dan’s message is very conversational, and meanders quite a bit, but the ending is powerful. Here are some quotes to give you a flavor.
Do you think you are a match for Satan?…Do you have any clue of what Satan is? Satan is devoted 24/7 to just tempting little morsels like you and me. And he’s been doing it thousands of years….he’s merciless. He’s powerful beyond what you can imagine. Are you a match for that? Are you that smart? Are you that strong? Have you ever fought a battle of that nature with your own strength and wisdom and come off the winner?
Are you a match for the seduction of sin? Do you have any idea of what sin does?… Sin comes into your mind with an effective self defence system. The moment a person loves and embraces a sin, and makes it tbeir own, a process starts going in his brain that destroys his power of thinking an dmoral sense. Sin is impervious to facts, and logic, and Scripture, as long as a person loves it and clings to it. Every person who sins thinks that he’s noble, and thinks his sin is different. And if you try to him from the Word of God about it, he will hate you, and think you don’t understand him. And he will feel like a martyr because his sin is different. It’s special, because he’s special. Because sin comes in with that sulphuric whiff of Hell that made Lucifer into the devil–of pride…an attempt at deicide….do you have any idea of the rationalizing power of your passions?
Buckle up your seat belt!
Resolved 2009
This years Resolved Conference was on the popular subject of sin, and the messages are excellent. The speakers spoke about understanding sin and how to fight sin in your life. The theme of the conference is from John Owen who wrote “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”
The War Against Your Soul, Rick Holland
Blessed Bankruptcy, Steve Lawson
Who’s Really at Work, C.J. Mahaney
Blessed Purity, Steve Lawson
A Theology of Creation, John MacArthur
God’s Sovereignty Over Satan’s Fall, John Piper
A Biblical Strategy for Fighting Sexual Sin, Rick Holland
The Sanctifying Shepherd, John MacArthur
The Troubled Soul, C. J. Mahaney
How Sin Serves the Glory of Christ, John Piper
A few messages worth noting:
Steve Lawson’s message “Blessed Bankruptcy” looks at Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and is one of the best messages I’ve heard on this beattitude. Don’t miss this one.
John MacArthur’s message “The Sanctifying Shepherd” is fantastic, and desperately needed in our current climate of wild and crazy church planting and evangelism techniques. MacArthur brings us back to take a sober look at the shepherding of our Lord Jesus Christ who alone has the power to save and sanctify. I think many honest church strategists will listen to this and discover they are operating outside of the pasture that Christ is.
MacArthur’s message “A Theology of Creation” is the same message he gave at the Shepherd’s Conference. Though a repeat, if you have not heard it, it is a look at how a literal 6 day creation is the only honest way to deal with Genesis 1-3. MacArthur makes a great case for the miraculous nature of creation which is beyond scientific means of measuring and explaining.
Rick Holland takes a hard look at the problem of sexual sin in the church and presents a biblical strategy for fighting it.
All in all, this Resolved Conference continues to affirm that Resolved is one of the best conferences in the evangelical world, not just for college students, but for anyone who likes sound theology powerfully proclaimed.
How to Kill Sin
Do you live in a peacekeeping mentality, or a war time mentality? John Piper looks at Romans 8 and exhorts us to make war on our sin. ‘If you’re not killing sin, then sin is killing you.’ This is an excellent 3-part series.
A Functional Doctrine of Sin
Rick Gamache of Sovereign Grace Church, Minneapolis recently preached this hard-hitting sermon, challenging Christians to deal with root of our sin. His title, A Functional Doctrine of Sin, summarizes the focus of his purpose, to give us a practically functioning mindset and approach to dealing honestly and seriously with our sin.
One of his quotes (perhaps from Ralph Venning) says we must understand the evilness of sin because the evil of sin is what cost the Savior his blood (my poor paraphrase from memory).
Excellent sermon on sin, in addition to the fact that there are few sermons on sin.
Doctrine of Sin: Grudem’s Systematic Theology Lectures
Wayne Grudems continuing Systematic Theology lecture series has completed the doctrine of sin in three lectures.
Doctrine of Sin part 1 >>>
Doctrine of Sin part 2 >>>
Doctrine of Sin part 3 >>>
Battling Unbelief series with John Piper
This is an older sermon series that is the basis for a recently released book by the same name. This is a timeless series. Piper demonstrates how particular sins are an expression of unbelief in God, His sovereignty and His promises. Piper defines unbelief based on John 6:35:
“Unbelief is turning away from Jesus to find satisfaction somewhere else. Or, to put it positively, ‘belief’ in Jesus is coming to Him to feed on Him; that is to get my satisfaction, to have my soul-thirst satisfied from Him. That means that eternal life, as we said earlier in John 3, is promised not to those who think things about Jesus as the Son of God merely, but to those who drink from the Son of God. Eternal life is promised to faith. And faith is not an idea in the head, it’s an appetite of heart fastening onto the Bread of Life. You can think all kinds of ideas about that loaf of bread, Jesus Christ, and if you don’t eat it to the satisfaction of your soul, you’re unsaved.”
Each message focuses on a particular sin: covetousness, anxiety, bitterness, lust, pride, anger, impatience, misplaced shame, and despondancy.
Faith by Hearing 