{"id":1329,"date":"2011-08-10T13:07:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2024-03-26T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:36:09","slug":"dont-tame-sin-kill-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/2011\/08\/10\/dont-tame-sin-kill-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#039;t tame sin\u2014Kill it."},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1330\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/08\/adam_eve_fall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"545\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/08\/adam_eve_fall.jpg 545w, https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/08\/adam_eve_fall-300x216.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2011\/08\/adam_eve_fall-414x300.jpg 414w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 545px) 100vw, 545px\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large\">For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.<em><br \/>\n(Romans 8:13)<\/em><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some animals cannot be tamed. You may call a snake\u00a0your pet and give it a cute name, but that doesn\u2019t take the\u00a0wild out of it. No matter how long you\u2019ve housed, cared\u00a0for, and fed a boa constrictor, it may still turn on you.\u00a0After all, it is still a snake.<\/p>\n<p>It is much the same with sin. You may cuddle sin like\u00a0a pet, but that doesn\u2019t take the wild out of it or make it\u00a0less dangerous. Evil cannot be domesticated. Sin is poised\u00a0to attack your faith at any moment. Sometimes it bares\u00a0its fangs and strikes in a surprise attack. Sometimes it is\u00a0cunning enough to play dead and subtle enough to pose as something good. But either way, sin is wired to kill.\u00a0Slowly, cleverly, when you\u2019re not paying attention, sin\u00a0will squeeze the faith, love, and holiness right out of you\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Think for a moment about the act of killing. How\u00a0do you kill something? To make this more palatable,\u00a0let\u2019s consider snakes again! There are lots of ways to\u00a0kill a snake. You can crush it with a rock, starve it, burn\u00a0it, drown it, or chop off its hideous little head. Choose\u00a0your favorite method, but what you\u2019re essentially doing\u00a0in each is depriving the snake of something it needs to\u00a0live\u2014be it brains, food, air, or a hospitable environment.\u00a0That\u2019s what we have to do with sin in the heart. We have to\u00a0<em>weaken<\/em>sin by taking away the things that give it strength,\u00a0by depriving it of food and air, as it were. This means that\u00a0one of the most practical ways to kill sin is to quit giving it\u00a0opportunities to thrive: \u201cMake no provision for the flesh,\u00a0to gratify its desires\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Romans%2013.14b\">Romans 13:14b<\/a>). Or in the words of seventeenth-century pastor John Owen, \u201cBe killing sin or it will be killing you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small\">\u2014Brian Hedges, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cruciformpress.com\/our-books\/licensed-to-kill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin<\/em><\/a>, 7-8. (HT: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloggingtheologically.com\/2011\/08\/01\/kill-sin-dont-try-to-tame-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BT<\/a>)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13) Some animals cannot be tamed. You may call a snake\u00a0your pet and give it a cute name, but that doesn\u2019t take the\u00a0wild out of it. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":1330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-misc","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9422,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/9422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.blueletterbible.org\/blb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}