Commit Violence Against Sin — Slay It!

This addresses so very directly what I have not done with my sins, and how much I am troubled and have not peace when I sin. Jonathan Edwards exhorts us to commit violence against sin — to stone our sins, bury them for good, not even allowing the children of such sins to live.

I am learning so much from this book Pursuing Holiness in the Lord that I greatly recommend it to anyone struggling to truly live a life of holiness as God commands (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Whatever troubles there are for sin, yet if the troubler is not slain, it cannot be expected but that there will be trouble still. Before there will be no true comfort. The soul may return to stupidity and carelessness, and may receive a false peace and hope, and sin be kept alive; but no true hope.

Persons may be exceedingly troubled for sin, and yet sin be saved alive. Persons may seem to lament that they have done thus and thus, and weep many tears, and cry out the sinfulness and wickedness, and yet the life of sin be whole in them. But if so, they shall never receive true comfort.

They may refrain from sin; there may be a great reformation and exact life for a time, or there may be a total reformation of some particular ways of sin, and yet no true hope; because sin is only restrained; it is not slain. Many men are brought to restrain sin, and to give it slight wounds, who cannot be brought to kill it.

Wicked men are loathe to kill sin. They have been very good friends to it ever since they have been in the world, and have always treated it as one of their most familiar and best friends. They have allowed it the best room in their hearts,  and have given it the best entertainment they could, and they are very loathe to destroy it. But until this be done, God will never give them true comfort.

If ever men come to have a true hope, they must do as the children of Israel did by Achan:

And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day.

Joshua 7:24-26 KJV

So if ever men come to have true hope, they must take sin, which is the troubler, and all which belongs to it, even that which seems most dear and precious, though it be as choice as Achan’s silver and wedge of gold, and utterly destroy them, and burn them with fire, to be sure to make a thorough end of them, as it were, bury them and raise over them a heap of stones, to lay a great weight upon them, to make sure of it that they shall never rise more.

Yea, and thus they must serve all his sons and daughters. They must not save some of the accursed brood alive. All the fruits of sin must be forsaken. There must not be some particular lust, some dear sinful enjoyment, some pleasant child of sin, spared: but all must be stoned and burned. If we do thus, we may expect to have trouble cease, and light to arise, as it was in the camp of Israel after the slaying of the troubler.

Edwards, Jonathan. Pursuing Holiness in the Lord.
P&R Publishing, 2005. 113-114.

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