March 18

Watch against temptation

“Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching” (Luke 12:37).
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Matt. 26:41).
 
Temptations, however, owe much of their peril and of their power to the fact that they commonly spring upon us unawares.  Satan is no more likely to advertise the time and method of his assaults in advance than a burglar is to send us word that he will be trying the bolts of our front door at one o’clock tomorrow morning.  “I say unto you all, Watch,” is the command of our Master.—Theodore Cuyler.
 
Opportunity knocks but once only, but temptation bangs on the door repeatedly.


Kate Lee was one of the Salvation Army’s best jewels.  She gave up everything to become a soul-winner and earned by her sacrificing, loving care for others the name of Angel Adjutant.  She says this about her severe temptations:
 
“I have found the need of great watchfulness, and have needed much prayer to keep my soul in touch with God and on fire for precious souls.  Although I was sanctified and no longer under the power of sin, yet in his subtlety the devil has come again and again and striven to bring me down.  Sometimes he has come as an angel of light, so that I have been led to the very verge of sin, tempted to indulge in what seemed at the moment harmless, perhaps because others who professed as much as I did, indulged in it too.  Tempted to shrink from the sacrifice that a separated life must mean, tempted to give way to the flesh, one’s natural desires and inclinations, I have even allowed the devil to take me to the edge of a great spiritual precipice, but God, in His mercy, has flashed His wonderful light upon my pathway in time to show me where I was, and what would be the outcome if I yielded to the temptation.  Oh, how it caused me to pray and seek strength which enabled me to overcome!”
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