Samuel Rutherford writes:

“The devil’s war is better than the devil’s peace. Suspect dumb holiness. When the dog is kept out of doors, he howls to be let in again.”

Rutherford is right, and we don’t usually think of it like that in the moment. But as he says, we should “suspect dumb holiness”.

What does that mean? It means, that when holiness just happens and we’re not struggling with one thing or another, there’s reason for us to be suspicious. It may be that we’re simply in a time of blessing and rest. But, more commonly, it may mean that we’ve unwittingly settled into a quiet, corrosive pattern of sin, so that the Enemy has no need to make a ruckus.

I know that for me this pattern has generally proven true.

As strange as it may seem from the inside, when I’m struggling it’s usually an indication that I’m in a healthy place. While on the flip side, when all things seem to be going well, it’s usually a symptom that I’m not struggling when or where I ought to be.

Again, not a rule of any kind, but a fairly consistent pattern.

One of my favorite verses in all of scripture is found in Song of Solomon 2:15. It goes like this:

“Catch the foxes for us,
   the little foxes
that spoil the vineyards,
   for our vineyards are in blossom.”

It’s a beautiful peace of poetry and the sentiment of my own heart. As I reflected on it some tonight, I read Matthew-Henry’s commentary on that portion of scripture. His wording is pointed and concise. I couldn’t say it better, so I’ll let him.

“The first risings of sinful thoughts and desires, the beginnings of trifling pursuits which waste the time, trifling visits, small departures from truth, whatever would admit some conformity to the world; all these, and many more, are little foxes which must be removed. This is a charge to believers to mortify their sinful appetites and passions, which are as little foxes, that destroy their graces and comforts, and crush good beginnings. Whatever we find a hinderance to us in that which is good, we must put away.”

Yesterday I hit Proverbs 7 in my reading. And in all of scripture, I think there is narrowly a poetic passage that cuts so cleanly.

For at the window of my house
   I have looked out through my lattice,
and I have seen among the simple,
   I have perceived among the youths,
   a young man lacking sense,
passing along the street near her corner,
   taking the road to her house
in the twilight, in the evening,
   at the time of night and darkness.

And behold, the woman meets him,
    dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.
She is loud and wayward;
   her feet do not stay at home;
now in the street, now in the market,
   and at every corner she lies in wait.
She seizes him and kisses him,
   and with bold face she says to him,
"I had to offer sacrifices,
   and today I have paid my vows;
so now I have come out to meet you,
   to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.
I have spread my couch with coverings,
   colored linens from Egyptian linen;
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
   aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;
   let us delight ourselves with love.
For my husband is not at home;
   he has gone on a long journey;
he took a bag of money with him;
   at full moon he will come home."

With much seductive speech she persuades him;
   with her smooth talk she compels him.
All at once he follows her,
   as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a stag is caught fast
   till an arrow pierces its liver;
as a bird rushes into a snare;
   he does not know that it will cost him his life.

In the story, there are three main rolls. One of Solomon, the witness, seeing the youth walking to his doom. There’s the youth, who’s oblivious to the danger he’s walking into. And there’s, of course, the temptress representing whatever sinful desire allures a man—in the case of this proverb, lust.

While there are volumes that could be spoken about this set of verses, I noticed on in particular. While there are three rolls in this story, as Christians, we often fill all three of them.

I often times know the temptress and my approaching long before I get to her making me the witness. Yet, at the same time, by sheer power of will, I am able to convince myself into obliviousness making me the youth. And all the while, in many cases, it is my own sinful heart drawing me there, making me also the tempter.

Much like what we find in James 1:13-14:

“Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

The sin and the flesh are a mess of convoluted psychological and spiritual battles. Perhaps the most difficult of which is learning not to do the fighting ourselves.

Charles Spurgeon says in All of Grace":

“It would be a very wonderful thing if one could stand at the foot of the Niagara Falls, and could speak a word which should make the river Niagara begin to run up stream, and leap up that great precipice over which it now rolls in stupendous force. Nothing but the power of God could achieve that marvel; but that would be more than a fit parallel to what would take place if the course of your nature were altogether reversed.”

We easily and often forget that sanctification is not our duty. In fact, we don’t really have the capacity to change our hearts at all—the necessary condition of real sanctification. Rather, it’s God’s work in the Holy Spirit.

No more could someone stand at the foot of the Niagara Falls and will the water to go back up, could a man stand in a mirror and will himself into a sanctified state.

I suppose in most ways, that’s a pretty encouraging reminder.

James 4:4 says,

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

In the past couple weeks this verse has become a bit haunting to me. I know that it doesn’t speak directly to my situation, but the principals apply nonetheless.

As I’ve been developing a discipline in prayer of the past couple of months, one of the things I’ve tried to make a priority is prayer for the lost. Specifically individuals in or around my life that don’t know Jesus yet. I think this has begun to deepen the seriousness of their plight in my heart and mind. When I’m around them, their spiritual condition is more on the forefront of my mind than it was in the past.

The trouble is, though my mind is there, my actions aren’t following yet.

It was recently that I was out with a handful of believers and about as many non-believers. At some point during the evening, I looked around and noticed that we weren’t too much different from them. At least not obviously. I don’t mean to imply these were particularly rough people. They were friendly, nice enough and weren’t even especially vulgar. But they weren’t loving either.

Neither were we.

And that’s the problem. Not especially loving to each other, to them or obviously to anyone else. I can’t help but wonder how we expect questions about “the hope that we have” when we’re not even obviously different.

Now, please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we dawn exclusively black and white attire, with big hats and belt buckles. Nor am I really suggesting that there should be frivolous encouragements thrown around. I’m simply saying that our choices and actions should be shining with love for each other. That is how the world will know we are Jesus’ disciples–heck that’s how I became a believer.

I can’t help but feel like God is often working in spite of his Church, rather than through it.

It seems that people often read verses in the bible about the way God works through believers and assume that it’s true of them. But simply because the bible says that God does it, doesn’t mean he always does it. And, judging my what I’ve seen throughout most of my walk, in me and in my brothers and sisters, it seems unlikely that those verses are talking about us!

I would like to see, through prayer and Spirit lead sanctification, my own choices and my own attitudes, along with the whole church, shift. So that when the world sees us they will actually have a reason to wonder.

This morning, while studying the Word with a good friend from church, we came upon the encouragement in James 3:17-18:

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.“

Just a few verses earlier, James went through pains to get across to teachers that their motives be weighed carefully, for they will be “judged with greater strictness” (3:1). Then, he goes on to expand on just what happens when that is neglected. He says that a teacher with “selfish ambition” is not practicing the “wisdom that comes down from above,” (3:14-15) but instead is “earthly, unspiritual and demonic”. And what’s worse than that, their fruit will not be “righteousness”, but rather, “disorder and every vile practice” (3:16).

Then, in contrast to these detrimental warnings, James offers his encouragement in 3:17-18.

James is contrasting “selfish ambition” with “true wisdom”. If we understand these terms in a true theological sense, I believe we’ll see that our contrast is not much unlike the contrast between pride and true God centered humility.

In James’ immediate context, he is speaking to teachers. He’s saying that you cannot stand up and teach in the pursuit of your own glory, in a selfishly ambitious (literally: “electioneering for yourself, attempting to put yourself foreword“) heart. When this happens, the result is inevitably “disorder and every vile practice”. Therefore, his inverse message found in 17-18 is that a teacher must pursue the humility (the wisdom from above). Any teacher who hopes to see a “harvest of righteousness” must sow in “peace” (true wisdom).

To be sure, this is a gross oversimplification of these verses. Please, don’t misunderstand what I’ve said as thorough. None the less I believe it does have some important words for our leaders today.

I believe there is a subtle pride that can exist in the church. One where ministers look out at their congregations, not desiring for the congregation to give them glory, but desiring the congregation to give God glory. But, to be the one seen as responsible for this great condition amongst the people. They don’t want the praise, they want to be praised for the praise.

It seems likely to me that this is a pervasive problem in church leaders today. And, it seems that it could easily go unchecked, unnoticed, even. But, if James’ words here are true, then we may be looking at one of the reasons the Church at large is in such a sad state right now.

Is it possible that our teachers, saturated in a world of instant communication and media, have sought their own glory in building a God glorifying church? And, if so, is it possible that this is the reason that there is so much disorder, and among so many churches there can be found “every vile practice”? And, if this is the case, will God hear our prayers for mercy, reveal our sin and return the offenders to their first love?

Yes. Invariably yes.

Something I think that I’m really critical of, at least in my mind, is the church’s general approach to accountability. I rarely see accountability “groups” or “partners” last very long or produce the kinds of results they were hoping for–that is, victory over chronic sin.

After a conversation last night, I think I’ve managed to nail down my grievance with the way most accountability groups work.

If we recognize that in the Christian there are now two natures–Christ’s nature and our old, sinful nature–then we see that in us there are two opposing motives working at pretty much any given time (we can see Paul begin to describe this through Romans 7 and 8). The sanctification process is, by the Spirit, the Christ nature in us winning.

But, most of the time, accountability groups fail to act in light of this spiritual dichotomy in us. In a negative sense, they attempt to beat down the sinful nature, or the sin in particular, inside the person in hopes of therefore achieving victory over the sin.

To make my point clear, I’ll use the example that started the conversation last night.

Lets say there’s two men. One man feels that the Lord wants him to overcome his addiction to smoking. So, he says to his friend– and accountability partner–”I need to quit smoking. Will you please help me to quit smoking?”. The friend of course agrees.

Some time goes by and sooner or later, the man has a lapse in judgment and buys a pack of cigarettes. When his friend sees them in his car, he is very upset at him. He takes the cigarettes, throws them out the window, then threatens something along the lines of, “If I see you have bought cigarettes again, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

The friend’s hope is that fear and shame will cause the man to flee from his addiction to smoking. The friend is attempting to beat down the sin and the sinful nature to achieve victory.

But, this isn’t going to work. It never does.

We don’t have to look far into scripture to see that there were thousands of years of biblical history in which God repeatedly punched Israel in the face for their constant and chronic sins. They always returned to them.

If man’s brutal attack on his sin and sinful nature could have been successful, Jesus would not have needed to die. Man has never, by sheer will power, or fear, been able to truly defeat sin–and where he has overcome the sins of his hands, they took up residence in his heart. Christ must be the solution to our sin both in justification and sanctification.

So, it seems to me that if accountability largely fails as it attempts to attack and beat down sin and the sinful nature, an adjustment is warranted.

Rather than attacking, in a negative sense, the sin and the sinful nature, accountability ought to appeal positively to Christ’s nature in the believer. If a believer is true, then in him exists the will to stop sinning (Matthew 26:41). No only in his hands but also his heart. Accountability groups ought to seek to encourage in the believer Christ’s nature to increase and overtake sin and the sinful nature.

Man has never and will never be able to overcome sin by his flesh, fore “nothing good dwells in the flesh” (Romans 7:18). To overcome sin, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s faith in Christ (Colossians 1:27). Accountability groups should be made up primarily of exhortation and encouragement and almost never of rebuke.

After all, encouragement is one of the church’s primary callings to itself.

Therefore, I believe that in committed accountability relationships, encouragement of a believer’s new nature will go vastly farther than any violent attack on sin and the nature that produces it.