If not quite as disastrous, the result is always the same in character. Keep godly associations and connections, attend to the house of God. We need the fellowship of God's people to respiritualize and recharge our depressed Christian lives. It should be a place of strengthening to you. Make its people your special companions and confidants; have some from among its membership with whom you are on terms of intimacy and friendship. It is wonderful how much we are influenced by our environment and fellowship; let us, then, be careful to live with God and with God's people.
To conclude,—God help us by His grace and Holy Spirit so to live in this world as to live above it and look beyond it, diligently use the means He has given us for strength and fidelity, and preserve us from the deadly snare of that great enemy of our soul, the godless, Christless world. Nor, let us ever remember, can we successfully meet this enemy without looking for strength to that divine source upon which our eyes are centered at this season, the cross of our adorable Savior. He that kneels in devotion at the foot of the cross, that has the love of Him that suffered and died for us upon that cross spread abroad in his heart, cannot divide that heart with his rival, and enemy, and obtain force and power to combat against his assaults. Without Him we can do nothing. With Him we can prevail.
Grant that I Thy passion view
With repentant grieving,
Nor Thee crucify anew
By unholy living.
How could I refuse to shun
Every sinful pleasure,
Since for me God's only Son
Suffered without measure?
Amen.
THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT.
Now when the Pharisee which had bidden Him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him; for she is a sinner.—Luke 7, 39.
Our Lord was reclining at a social meal in the house of Simon the Pharisee, when, unbidden, a woman enters the room, and, standing at the feet of Jesus, bursts into tears. She had not come for that purpose, but stationed aside of the Lord, she was so overcome that she could not restrain her emotion, and as the tears fall thick and fast upon the feet of her Lord, she wipes them with her hair, and kissing them, anoints them with costly ointment. The whole transaction is so simple and touching that we feel at once interested in the stranger. It is a question much discussed by Bible students who this woman was. It has been said it was Mary Magdalene, but that is a mistake; nor was it Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus of Bethany. Her name, for wise and kind reasons, is withheld from the Church. But we are not left entirely in suspense about her history.
From several incidents in this chapter we infer that she lived in the City of Nain where our Lord raised up the widow's son. Furthermore, we are told that she was a sinner; that means here, she had abandoned herself to a life of sin and impurity, and finally, it seems quite probable, judging from the precious quality of the ointment used, that she was a person of some wealth and fortune. What fixes our attention most is that she was a sinner, and a penitent sinner at that. What was the precise character of her transgression we are not told; but whether she had been an adulteress, or, being unmarried, had yielded to her depraved dispositions, and was leading a life of criminal voluptuousness, one thing is certain, she had reason to weep and lament. If she was guilty of the former,—adultery, unfaithfulness to her own spouse,—what opinion must a woman form of herself that has committed this offense? And if she was guilty of the last-named transgression, prostitution, no tears could have been too bitter. Human words fail to describe the condition of a woman who has arrived at such a depth of dissoluteness as to eradicate every degree of modesty, hand herself over to infamy that overthrows the whole social life, and converts mankind into a state of putrefaction and decay. If there is one offense that is calculated to become a perpetual source of sorrow, piercing the heart with thousand arrows of sad reflection and remorse, fixing daggers in the souls of loving parents, and covering one's family with public disgrace, it is the offense which defiles the most sacred and inviolable relation of human life. And however it may be done, we ought never to speak of such crime in the way of extenuation. Holy Scripture characterizes such not as pitiable, but as criminal, not as imposed upon, but as deceiving, not as corrupt, but as corrupters, the only course for whom is to do as this penitent, prostrate themselves in tears at the feet of Him who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.
These introductory remarks point to us the topic which shall employ our further contemplation this morning. We have considered the first great enemy of our souls, the devil, that wicked spirit who walketh about seeking whom he may devour, and the second, the world, and now we come to the third, the flesh, in contemplating which we shall note a few of the most prevalent forms in which it manifests itself, and secondly, how we may overcome it. May God grant His divine blessing!