Do Not Think Yourself Secure When You Come Down Into Your Worldly Business
Dear brethren, We will find that they solicit us in our best moments. I cannot fully account for the fact, but so it is, that I am most liable to speak unadvisedly with my lips when I have just enjoyed the raptures of high fellowship with God.
Yonder shines the Mountain of Transfiguration in its unrivalled splendour, but lo, at the very foot of it the Devil rages in the lunatic child! (Matthew 17:14-18; Mark 9:17-19; Luke 9:38-42) Our highest graces are not to be trusted, for, as the most venomous serpents lurk among the brightest flowers, so are temptations most abundant hard by our most spiritual and heavenly joys.
Do not trust yourself, O child of God, when you have seen the invisible, when you have stood within the circle of fire, and spoken with God as only his favorites may! Do not think yourself secure when you come down into your worldly business, though you have bathed your forehead in the serene light of communion. As pirates distinctly aim to attack the most heavily-laden galleons, so Satan assails you when your vessel has just left the Gold Coast of meditation and prayer. Therefore, watch, and pray evermore.
That detestable voice, which dared ask the Master himself to fall down and worship Satan (Matthew 4:9), will come to you when you are most bright and shining with the glory of hallowed fellowship, and will whisper to you, “Return, return.
Come down from the mount, and break the commandments to shivers at its foot.” The fiend will call you Solyma, quoting your heavenly name — the name of peace and love — and yet he will dare to say, “Return, return.” He will flatter us for our virtues, yet tempt us to the worst of vices.” Get behind me, Satan. Avaunt [archaic, go away], foul fiend!”
Even when repulsed, he will return to the charge, crouch at our feet, and whine out still, “Return, return.” The treasures of Egypt, and the pleasures of sin, are his bait and bribe. We cannot, and will not, return at his bidding, yet his frequent solicitation puts us to make a stand, and makes us cry for help. (Charles Spurgeon)