3. The next class are those who hear, believe, receive and practice the word of God--who run well for a season, maybe for a _long season_, but are little by little, and in an unperceived way, drawn away from their first love, and then on to perdition. Three things are here mentioned as drawing them gradually away from their devotion to Christ: (_a_) _Cares._ They have so much to attend to, they do not _have_ time or _take_ time for their religious duties, as prayer, going to meetings, etc., and missing these, they soon grow cold, and they are so occupied and worried with the multitude of things to be attended to, they have no _disposition_ for religion. All this care may be about things that are lawful, as making a living, for example. (_b_) _Riches._ Oh, how deceitful riches are. We think we don't love them, but let us be asked to part with them, as Christ asked the young man, and _we see_. John Wesley said, "As wealth increases, religion decreases," and he was right. (_c._) _Pleasure._ The pleasure of fine, rich living, fashionable life, fine dress, theater-going, balls, parties, flirtations, the admiration and praise of others etc., etc. 4. The last class are those who _count the cost_, go in with their eyes open, who _won't_ let cares, riches or pleasures draw them off, but who work, and serve, and pray with _patience_ even unto the end. II. CORINTHIANS, II: 11. "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices." The New Testament everywhere teaches that there is a personal evil spirit of wonderful cunning and deep malignity toward God and the human race. Hence, our conflict is not with flesh and blood; not against our own inclinations to evil, nor against sin in the abstract, but it is against the god of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Therefore, yielding to sin is no small matter, for it is yielding to an enemy of unfathomable hatred toward us, and of the deepest cunning, who, in everything, has for his purpose our ruin and God's disappointment, and who, however lightly he may let his chains lie upon us while we are led captive by him, at his will, always draws them so tight, when we attempt to escape from him, that only Almighty God can break them off and set us free. It makes a vast difference whether sin is only the indulgence of a passion which can have no intelligent design to damage and to ruin us, and which passes away when it is gratified, to trouble us no more, or whether it is the means adopted by an invisible but awfully real and hellish foe to lure us to an unforeseen ruin. Yes, sin is not a mere pleasure whose effects are ended when the enjoyment is over, but it is the bait that hides the cruel hook thrown out for us by the artful fisherman of hell. And he is all the more dangerous because we can not see him and realize always his ultimate purpose.