My Year with Owen #23

I will be sharing some John Owen quotes this year. The second book I'll be reading is Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of It.

You will say, “What provision is intended, and where is it to be laid up?” Our hearts, as our Savior speaks, are our treasury. There we lay up whatsoever we have, good or bad; and thence do we draw it for our use (Matt. 12: 35). It is the heart, then, wherein provision is to be laid up against temptation. ~ John Owen

If Satan, the prince of this world, come and find our hearts fortified against his batteries, and provided to hold out, he not only departs, but, as James says, he flees: “He will flee from us” (James 4:7). For the provision to be laid up it is that which is provided in the gospel for us. Gospel provisions will do this work; that is, keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world. ~ John Owen

“The love of Christ constrains us,” says the apostle, “to live to him” (2 Cor. 5:14); and so, consequently, to withstand temptation. A man may, nay, he ought to lay in provisions of the law also— fear of death, hell, punishment, with the terror of the Lord in them. But these are far more easily conquered than the other; nay, they will never stand alone against a vigorous assault. They are conquered in convinced persons every day; hearts stored with them will struggle for a while, but quickly give over. But store the heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a relish of the privileges we have thereby— our adoption, justification, acceptance with God; fill the heart with thoughts of the beauty of his death— and you will, in an ordinary course of walking with God, have great peace and security as to the disturbance of temptations. When men can live and plod on in their profession, and not be able to say when they had any living sense of the love of God or of the privileges which we have in the blood of Christ, I know not what they can have to keep them from falling into snares. ~ John Owen

It is so with our souls; they are exposed to temptations, assaulted continually; but if there be a garrison in them, or if they be kept as in a garrison, temptation shall not enter, and consequently we shall not enter into temptation. Now, how is this done? Says he, “The peace of God shall do it.” What is this “peace of God”? A sense of his love and favor in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatsoever. ~ John Owen

Lay in store of gospel provisions that may make the soul a defensed place against all the assaults thereof. ~ John Owen

Be always awake, that you may have an early discovery of your temptation, that you may know it so to be. Most men perceive not their enemy until they are wounded by him. ~ John Owen

Consider the aim and tendency of the temptation, whatsoever it be, and of all that are concerned in it. ~ John Owen

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible