When it comes in the guise of a friend

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"Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Does not this verse show that the world is an enemy to the Lord—and to the Lord's people? and never so much an enemy—never to be so much dreaded—as when it comes in the guise of a friend. When it steals upon your heart, engrosses your thoughts, wins your affections, draws away your mind from God—then it is to be dreaded. When the world smites us as an enemy—its blows are not to be feared.

It is when it smiles upon us as a friend—it is most to be dreaded. When our eyes begin to drink it in, when our ears begin to listen to its voice, when our hearts become entangled in its fascinations, when our minds get filled with its anxieties, when our affections depart from the Lord and cleave to the things of time and sense—then the world is to be dreaded.