Temptation and Peer Pressure

This morning, feeling that another Mormon Messages video wasn't going to cut it today, I decided to use a General Conference talk this time. This talk is from Bishop Gary E. Stevenson, and it's about the 2000 Stripling Warriors. These "ancient young men," as Bishop Stevenson described them (nice oxymoron, by the way), were "exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity" (Alma 53:20). Thus, the title of his talk: "Be Valiant in Courage, Strength, and Activity." He should have left it at "Be Valiant in Courage," because he doesn't really talk about the other two.

But in talking about courage, he shares an experience that his John had, in which he had an opportunity to show moral courage. He was attending a prestigious Japanese university, which was a great privilege for him and the other students. One group of students was holding a party, and John and a few of his friends were invited to attend. At the party, there was drinking and loud music, both of which got worse as the night wore on. John became uneasy. One of the students began organizing all the party-goers into a circle so they could share marijuana cigarettes. John knew he couldn't partake of that. One of his friends said that they could stay in the circle, but just pass the cigarette along instead of smoking. That would have been easy and it wouldn't force him to embarrass himself in front of the other students, but he knew that he had to take a stand. He removed himself from the circle and left the party and one of his friends left with him. Just as they were leaving, police officers arrived and arrested everyone who had handled the drugs, including the friend who said they could stay. John and the friend who came with him were clean.

This story makes me think of Lehonti, though kind of in reverse. Lehonti was the commander of an army in the Book of Mormon (in case anyone reading this doesn't know). He and his soldiers were camped up on a hill, and the commander of an enemy force invited Lehonti to come down off the mountain to parlay with him. Lehonti knew that the enemy leader was probably up to some trick, so he refused to come down. But after the enemy leader kept asking and asking, eventually Lehonti came out to parlay and, sure enough, he got tricked, lost his army and was killed.

The moral of the story is to stay on the mountain. He had an uphill advantage, his force was pretty strong, and assuming he had as much food as his opponent did (the record doesn't say), he could have just held his ground and would have been pretty safe doing it. He only lost when he left the safe area. In John's story, he almost lost his opportunity to study in Japan, not because he left a safe area, but because he entered a dangerous one.

Most people know that when a typical college or university student talks about a party, they're really talking about alcohol consumption, or worse. John may not have been Mormon, but if he was, he might have known that going to the party at all was a bad idea, even before they brought out illegal drugs. It was an area loaded with temptation and peer pressure. Thankfully, most of the people reading this blog would be wise enough to avoid a situation like that, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean we're safe.

Bishop Stevenson continues his talk on the need for courage by telling us that Satan doesn't only tempt us when we're hanging with the wrong crowd. He also tempts us when we're alone. He doesn't need to get our friends to tempt us to break our standards; he can place temptations directly into our minds. A good way to counter this is with positive peer pressure. Just as the wrong kinds of friends can tempt us to make wrong choices, the right kinds of friends can help us make right choices. But we can't be with our friends all the time. Sometimes, we need to be able to stand alone.

Or do we? When Satan tempts us with thoughts such as "no one will ever know," he's hoping that we'll forget that God is always watching over us. Through his angels and the Holy Spirit, He's always with us, always watching us, always ready to help. Have you ever seen this Mormonad?

It's true. The scripture reference at the bottom is John 14: 18, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." The aid of our Savior is always only a prayer away. If we pray for help in resisting temptation, we'll get it.

In these days, temptation is all around us. We face it daily. The people we choose to be around can make temptation harder or easier to face. Let us always try to stand by the Savior, so that when temptation comes, whether we're alone or with a group of the wrong sort of people, we'll always have at least one good Friend who can help us choose the right.