Satan's Choice of A Locality

"Tempted of Satan in the wilderness." Mark 1:13.

       We are apt to think that Satan is most powerful in crowded thoroughfares. It is a mistake. I believe the temptations of life are always most dangerous in the wilderness. I have been struck with that fact in Bible history. It is not in their most public moments that the great men of the past have fallen; it has been in their quiet hours. Moses never stumbled when he stood before Pharaoh, or while he was flying from Pharaoh; it was when he got into the desert that his patience began to fail. David never stumbled while he was fighting his way through opposing armies; it was when the fight was over, when he was resting quietly under his own vine, that he put forth his hand to steal. The sorest temptations are not those spoken, but those echoed. It is easier to lay aside your besetting sin amid a cloud of witnesses than in the solitude of your own room. The sin that besets you is never so beseeching as when you are alone. You may say kind things in public to the man you hate; but you make up for it in the wilderness. It is our thoughts that hurt us; and we think most in solitude. Many a man who resists the temptation to drunkenness at the dinner-table is conquered at the secret hour. Paul says that the Christian armor is most needed after we have vanquished the outward foe, "that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand."

       O Thou, who alone hast control over my thoughts, help me in the wilderness. Others can help me in the market-place. Others can advise me at the festive hour. Others can restrain me at the meeting of the multitude. But Thou alone canst help my wilderness. And it is there that I need Thy keeping, O Lord. I speak often of retiring from the vanities of life; yet it is in retirement that the vanities of life most come to me. My vain world is in my soul; the artist that paints it is my own heart. It is not when I go to the marriage feast of Cana that I have most need of Thee; it is when I hear the music and the dancing, and, through envy of my brother, refuse to go in. This is my moment of worldliness because this is my desert moment - my separation from human sympathy. Meet me in my desert, O Christ, for it is my world of vanity. Meet me in my hour of separation from human interests. Meet me when I have lost the voices of the crowd. Meet me when I walk in the wilderness and strive to forget the cities of men. Meet me when I despair of the outer world, when I malign its streets and gates, when I despise its courts and palaces. The contact with my brother man will break the worldliness of the wilderness; dispel that wilderness, O Lord. Matheson.