Not Into Temptation…

In a talk to young men and boys, a well-known athlete made this comment on a compelling question: What would we thank other people for later in life? We wouldn’t thank them for tempting us to do wrong. We wouldn’t thank them for influencing us to acquire bad habits. We wouldn’t thank them for the memory of unclean stories told in our presence. We wouldn’t thank them for enticing us to sluff church or to sluff school or to sluff work but we would be thankful for those who helped us to be at our best.

We would be thankful for those who had encouraged us to use our time well and not to waste it. We would be thankful for those who counseled us to keep the record clean, to keep physically and morally clean. We would be thankful for those who helped us to have good habits. We would be thankful for those who left us with memories we would be proud of.

Surely, in years to come, we would be resentful to those who contributed to the making of sordid or unsightly memories, of those who led us to questionable short cuts, of those who tempted us to evil.

Sometimes such temptations may at the moment seem exciting, but sooner or later in yielding to them there comes a time of regret, of an aching inside, with feelings of sorrow and shame. And well might we ask all men to remember the plea in the Lord’s prayer, “. . . lead us not into temptation.” And well might we remind ourselves to remember not to lead ourselves into temptation nor to lead anyone else”but deliver us [all] from evil.”

The fact is that we are all inescapably responsible for the total effect of our influence on others for the total effect of our teaching, for the total effect of our tempting and enticing. No man or woman ever tempts anyone else to any evil or any unworthy act or to any inducement away from duty without being accountable for his adverse influence.

And in choosing friends, we would well remember that no true friend would ever lead us into temptation, or would ever appeal to the weaker side of ourselves, or would ever lead us to make the memories that would cause shame or sorrow, or would ever lead us to be anything that was less than being at our best.

In all the long length of life we have great reason to be thankful for those who “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”