And one virtue of our stern plain-speaking Lenten services is this, that they will not allow us to forget that fated reckoning day—they put us, whether we like it or not, face to
face with the sure consequences of sin; and they compel us to listen to the question—“What is the choice of thy life?”
For you will bear in mind that we read all these decrees of Divine law with our eye fixed on our own life and not on our neighbour. They are meant to help us to judge ourselves, and not some other person; they lead us to penitence and not to criticism, so that our readiness or our unwillingness to meet and to weigh them, and to respond to them with definite prayer and penitence, may be taken as an index of our religious sincerity, and of our readiness to consecrate our lives to the service of our Saviour Christ.
And it is well for us that we should ask ourselves these questions; for if indeed it is true that every transgression and disobedience shall receive its just recompense and reward, how else shall we escape?
XV. THE CONFLICT WITH EVIL.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”—St. Matthew vi. 13.
It is good for us sometimes to stand still for a moment and consider our use of very familiar words. And this petition may appropriately illustrate our need of such an exercise.
It is on your lips every day. Every Sunday you offer it you hardly know how many times, in private and in public prayer: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And the moment you stop to think about it you feel—who does not?—that it is a very solemn and moving petition if you offer it before God in sincerity, and with an honest desire to be kept out of the way of sin; but it becomes a fearful mockery if it is offered
with unclean lips, or by one who is living in any sort of sinful practice, either secret or open.
And yet, as we all know, it is possible to do this, making the prayer mere lip service, under the influence of daily custom. This, then, is the question it suggests to us whenever we stop to think about it: How far are we endeavouring to keep our lives in accordance with the spirit of such a petition? “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Most of you, I can well believe, would not voluntarily or deliberately step out of your way to meet a temptation, or to seek any evil course of life. You would not do it of your own free choice, or in cold blood, as we say. This, at any rate, is your own feeling about sin, whether the feeling is consistent with your life or not. As you contemplate any low form of life in another, you recognise its ugliness and its degrading character, and you call it very likely by the name it deserves. If, then, you find yourself