Article June 5, 1926 Issue

"Enter not into temptation"

KATHERINE PUFFER

WHEN Jesus returned to his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane and found them asleep, he said to them, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." This admonition makes it plain that temptation is a state of thought which mortals believe they may enter into, as well as one they can avoid. Likewise, it shows that temptation does not enter into mankind, as many believe; but that mankind does the entering in. Jesus did not say that one would not be tempted; his warning was against yielding to the temptation. Without doubt, one of error's strongest weapons is discouragement when one is tempted. Jesus, however, said to Peter, "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." The writer to the Hebrews makes the statement that Jesus was tempted in all points "like as we are, yet without sin," thus making it clear that it is not sinful to be tempted. Nevertheless, it is sin to yield to temptation or to condone the yielding.

What is this state called temptation; and how may one avoid entering into it or yielding to it? are questions of grave import to mankind. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 85), "Temptation, that mist of mortal mind which seems to be matter and the environment of mortals, suggests pleasure and pain in matter." With her clear discernment of the Science of God, divine Mind, she has defined for mankind this mist of temptation, and at the same time has made the way plain for its complete overcoming and vanquishment—this, too, in direct accord with Jesus' marvelous mastery of temptation in the wilderness, as related in the fourth chapter of Matthew. In the preceding chapter it is related that Christ Jesus had been given the assurance that he was the Son of God. He was then led into the wilderness, where the arguments of the belief that life is in matter, and that matter is essential to life or success, were presented to him. He silenced each lying suggestion with the truth, the Word of God. Regardless of the suggestion that matter is real and essential to existence, he never departed from the conscious fact that he was the Son of God; hence, he did not enter into the temptation—in other words, he did not think with it. Herein was his dominion, his victory. Is not, then, the whole of the sin of temptation first to admit the lying argument into thought, and then to be used by it? There is nothing to indicate that Jesus spent any time in deploring the fact that he had been tempted; for he immediately went out and healed all who came to him for healing.

The same lying, misrepresenting suggestions come to all of us in like manner as they came to Jesus the Christ; and they must be met and mastered by the same conscious unity with God, good, by knowing that man is spiritual and perfect, and that God is man's Mind, or Father. It is noticeable that Jesus' only reply to error was a Scriptural statement, thus showing that the Word of God is a sure defense against temptation. Here is a valuable hint to the one struggling to surmount evil's suggestions. Here is an effectual help to him in time of trouble. God is expressed through His Word, which is always clothed with majesty and power.

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