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    Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin
    Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin
    Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin

    By Brian Hedges

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Your soul is a war zone: know your enemy, learn to fight.

    The Christian life is not a playground, but a battleground. One of the fiercest foes in this battle dwells within our own hearts: the enemy of indwelling sin. The Scriptures command us to “put sin to death.” This is what pastors and theol

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCruciform Press
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9781936760251
    Licensed to Kill: A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin
    Author

    Brian Hedges

    Brian Hedges is the author of Hit List: Taking Aim at the Seven Deadly Sins (Cruciform Press), Christ Formed in You: The Power of Gospel for Personal Change, and Active Spirituality: Grace and Effort in the Christian Life (both from Shepherd Press). He serves as lead pastor for Fulkerson Park Baptist Church in Niles, Michigan. He has been married to Holly since 1996 and has four children.

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    Reviews for Licensed to Kill

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    • 5/5
      Cruciform Press is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. These little books, usually around 110 pages, are packed full of Gospel truth and clear and practical application. The latest book published by Cruciform Press is Licensed to Kill-A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin by Brian Hedges. There have not been many modern books that have kept me riveted as PM rolled into AM but this little book by Hedges definitely did the trick.
      This is not an extensive book. At 117 pages and a generous font size, this book is easily digested in one sitting. The author’s tone and wit also aid in a rapid pace of reading, allowing the reader to genuinely fly through this book. Be careful however, as you fly through this book you will be consistently struck with Gospel-drenched, sin-hating truth that confronts, convicts, and encourages you to make a more concerted and genuine effort to fill your life with the “holy violence” of slaughtering your indwelling, God-hating sin.
      A highlight of this text is the immensely practical nature of the whole book. Even when dealing with theological abstracts, it still has a feel of a “field manual”, only dealing with the “why-for’s” to better equip for the “how-to’s”. Normally, I would not like this. In all subjects, especially Scripture, I enjoy the abstract. I do not know if it is Hedges’ writing style or the subject manner or a combination of both, but this text spent a good amount of time in practical issues and I enjoyed it immensely.
      I do not believe it would be an overstatement (or a slight) to call this John Owen-light. The author constantly goes back to Owen and concludes the text with an encouragement to engage oneself in the writings of Owen that so greatly influenced him. Owen is a difficult read, even when compared with other Puritan authors, but the treasures found in his writings are vast. This book does an excellent job of whetting the appetite for Owen while mining much of the Gospel truth found in Owen’s writings. In doing so, it makes Owen’s writings much more accessible to the modern reader.
      This book does two things, and it does them quite well. First, it introduces the writings of John Owen on mortification in a manner that will entice many to make the leap into the mind and writings of this Puritan great. Secondly, and so much more importantly, this book will encourage many, myself included, to engage in the act of mortifying sin in a much more active and victorious manner. For 117 pages you cannot really ask for more!

    Book preview

    Licensed to Kill - Brian Hedges

    Licensed to Kill

    A Field Manual for Mortifying Sin

    Brian G. Hedges

    Cruciform Press | Released July, 2011

    To my sons, Stephen and Matthew:

    May you triumph over sin through the gospel of our crucified and risen Savior.

    – Brian G. Hedges

    missing image file

    © 2011 by Brian G. Hedges. All rights reserved.

    CruciformPress.com | [email protected]

    Print ISBN: 978-1-936760-23-7

    ePub ISBN: 978-1-936760-24-4

    Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-936760-25-1

    CruciformPress.com

    email: [email protected]

    Facebook: http://on.fb.me/Cruciform

    Twitter: @CruciformPress

    Newsletter: http://bit.ly/CruciformNL

    Published by Cruciform Press, Adelphi, Maryland. Copyright © 2011 by Brian G. Hedges. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from: The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Italics or bold text within Scripture quotations indicates emphasis added.

    Are there things you hate that you end up doing anyway? Have you tried to stop sinning in certain areas of your life, only to face defeat over and over again? If you’re ready to get serious about sin patterns in your life – ready to put sin to death instead of trying to manage it – this book outlines the only strategy that works. This is a book I will return to and regularly recommend to others.

    Bob Lepine

    Co-Host, FamilyLife Today

    Sanctification is a grueling process. But it’s NOT the process of moving beyond the reality of our justification but rather moving deeper into the reality of our justification. This is why when Jesus was asked in John 6:28, What must we do to be doing the works of God? he answered, This is the work of God, that you believe in him who he sent. Jesus was getting at the root of the problem because justification alone kills all of our self-salvation projects that fuel all of our bad behavior and moral failures. Brian Hedges shows the importance of fighting the sin that so easily entangles us and robs us of our freedom by fleeing to the finished work of Christ every day. Well done!

    Tullian Tchividjian

    Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and author of Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels

    "Brian Hedges hasn’t written a book for our recreational pleasure, but a ‘field manual’ to assist us in our battle against sin. Rather than aiming at simple moral reformation, Licensed to Kill aims at our spiritual transformation in this fight by addressing the drives and desires of our hearts. Like any good field manual, this is a small volume that focuses on the most critical information regarding our enemy, and gives practical instruction concerning the stalking and killing of sin. This is a theologically solid and helpfully illustrated book that not only warns of sin’s danger, but also holds out the gospel confidence of sin’s ultimate demise."

    Joe Thorn

    Author, Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself, Lead Pastor, Redeemer Fellowship, Saint Charles, IL

    Are you ready for a serious fight to the death? My friend Brian Hedges goes for the jugular by dusting off a near antique word (and worse, a scarcely-used yet lethal weapon): mortification. Are Christ-followers really licensed to kill? Read this field-manual and you will discover that you have a monstrous and aggressive antagonist who is aiming to annihilate you. It’s your duty to fight back! Brian has given us a faithful, smart, Word-centered guide to help us identify and form a battle plan for mortally wounding the enemy of indwelling sin.

    Wes Ward

    Senior Director of Media & Content Strategy, Revive Our Hearts (and a co-elder with the author)

    Table of Contents

    Chapters

    One Killing Sin

    The Definition of Mortification

    Two Toward Life or Death

    Why Sin Must Be Killed

    Three The Monster Within

    The Nature of Indwelling Sin

    Four With Murderous Intent

    How Sin Works in Our Souls

    Five Soul Surgery

    Preparing for Mortification

    Six Transforming Grace

    The Power of the Gospel

    Seven Crucified with Christ

    How the Cross Kills Sin

    Eight Empowered by the Spirit

    His Role and Ours

    Nine The Weapons of War

    Meditation and Prayer

    Appendix 1

    Does Romans 7:14–25 Describe a Believer?

    Appendix 2

    Further Reading

    Endnotes

    About Cruciform Press

    One

    Killing sin

    The Definition of Mortification

    Cory Byrne was showing off his pet. Draped over his neck and shoulders was his nine-foot-long, twenty-five-pound boa constrictor. To the horror of a watching friend, the reptile’s large, lumbering coils began to tighten around its owner like a noose. Slowly, irresistibly, the great snake squeezed Cory’s life away. His air supply was cut off. His face turned red and he passed out. Unable to remove the snake by herself, Cory’s friend called for emergency help. But several hours later Cory died in a local hospital.

    Some animals cannot be tamed. You may call a snake your pet and give it a cute name, but that doesn’t take the wild out of it. No matter how long you’ve housed, cared for, and fed a boa constrictor, it may still turn on you. After all, it is still a snake.

    It is much the same with sin. You may cuddle sin like a pet, but that doesn’t take the wild out of it or make it less dangerous. Evil cannot be domesticated. Sin is poised to attack your faith at any moment. Sometimes it bares its fangs and strikes in a surprise attack. Sometimes it is cunning enough to play dead and subtle enough to pose as something good. But either way, sin is wired to kill. Slowly, cleverly, when you’re not paying attention, sin will squeeze the faith, love, and holiness right out of you.

    This is the nature of sin. Left unchecked, it always destroys. Sin’s hostility is both unchanging and fatal. Sin defiles the human conscience, hijacks human relationships, and weighs down the world with brutality and injustice. Worst of all, sin creates a gulf between us and God. Our intention towards sin must therefore mirror its hostile intentions towards us: death and destruction. This was precisely Paul’s point when he wrote, if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:13). Or in the words of seventeenth-century pastor John Owen, Be killing sin or it will be killing you.[1]

    Theologians of past generations, following Romans 8:13 in the KJV ("if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body"), called the duty of killing sin mortification. We do not often use the word mortification today. When we do, we usually mean humiliation. If I say, Michelle was mortified, I mean that she was really embarrassed about something. But Paul isn’t talking about being embarrassed. When he commands us to mortify the deeds of the body he has one thing in mind: killing sin. That’s what this book is about.

    Licensed to Kill is intended to serve you as a field manual for mortifying sin. But this isn’t the kind of field-manual a backpacker or naturalist might carry. There is nothing so tame as bird-watching or collecting butterflies in the pages that follow. This is more like the field-manual of a covert intelligence agent. The context is war and the goal is survival. Kill or be killed. What we need is detailed instruction on surviving a dangerous assignment while in aggressive and hostile enemy territory. With that aim in mind, each chapter of this book will:

    • address an important aspect of this gritty but necessary business of killing sin;

    • explore a key passage from Scripture about mortification;

    • and conclude with a series of Examine and Apply questions .

    In this first chapter we will define and clarify what mortification actually is by setting it in contrast with what it is not.

    Mortification Is About Indwelling Sin, Not the Physical Body

    Some people associate mortification with the medieval Roman Catholic practice of mortification of the flesh, which employed ascetic techniques such as self-flagellation and wearing rough clothing. Others equate mortification with less severe forms of asceticism, prescribing vows of fasting, solitude, poverty, or celibacy as the path for fighting sin—as if food, companionship, possessions, or sex were evils in themselves.

    But Scripture cautions against this approach to spirituality. Paul alerts us to the danger of false teachers who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:3). In another passage, he warns against those who say, "‘Do not handle, Do not taste,

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