Spiritual Conflict

"For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would." Galatians 5:17

Now, my friends, if I have painted you in very black colors, remember that I have dipped the brush in my own heart. I have not gone from Zoar pulpit into the sinful haunts of London to find out and describe the flesh. I feel all the workings that I have been describing. Do not think that I stand up in the pulpit as some holy being, who knows nothing of the workings of sin; that I have been imagining what evil might be in others, and then painting it out in the blackest colors I could devise. Be assured that every line in the picture I have been tracing of human wickedness is taken from myself. Not that God permits me, thanks to his blessed name, to do those evils that I know and feel by painful experience daily working in my heart. The seeds of every crime are in our nature; and therefore, could your flesh have its full swing, there would not be a viler wretch in London than you, or one that puts into practice more evil than you imagine. But God's blessed Spirit works in your heart to counteract these evils, so that you cannot be what you would, nor do the things that you would.

- excerpt from a sermon entitled "Spiritual Conflict", preached by J.C. Philpot at Zoar Chapel in London on July 30, 1843.