Spurgeon on 'besetting sins'

“He will subdue our iniquities” Micah 7:19, AV

“A besetting sin is a sin that sometimes surprises a man, and then he ought to show fight and drive the besetting sin away. If I were to walk over the common every night, arm in arm with a fellow who picked my pocket, I should not say that the man ‘beset’ me. No, he and I are friends, and the robbery is only a little dodge of our own. If you go willfully into sin, or tolerate it, and say you cannot help it — well, you have to help it or you will be lost. One thing is certain — either you must conquer sin or sin will conquer you, and to be conquered by sin is everlasting death.

Well, what is to be done? Fall back upon this gracious promise: ‘He will subdue our iniquities.’ They have to be subdued; Jesus will do the deed, and in his name will we overcome. If we are slothful, we will in God’s strength do ten times as much as we should have done had we been naturally of an active turn. . . . Up! Slay this Agag that you thought to spare [1 Samuel 15:32-33]. Hew him in pieces before the Lord, or else the Lord will hew you in pieces one of these days.

God give you grace to get the victory.”

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the Old Testament (London, n.d.), IV:687.

HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.