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“Never go [willingly] into temptation. The man who prays “Lead us not into temptation,” and then goes into it, is a liar before God! What a hypocrite a man must be who utters this prayer and then goes off to the theater! How false is he who offers this prayer and then stands at the bar and drinks and talks with depraved men and bedizened women! “Lead us not into temptation,” is shameful profanity when it comes from the lips of men who resort to places of amusement whose moral tone is bad. “Oh,” you say, “you should not tell us of such things.” Why not? Some of you do them and I am bold to rebuke evil wherever it is found and shall do so while this tongue can move! There is a world of cant about.
People go to Church and say, “Lead us not into temptation,” and then they know where temptation is to be found and they go straight to it! You need not ask the Lord not to lead you there—He has nothing to do with you! The devil and you, between you, will go far enough without mocking God with your hypocritical prayers! The man who goes into sin willfully with his eyes open and then bends his knees and says half-a-dozen times over in his Church on Sunday morning “Lead us not into temptation,” is a hypocrite without a mask! Let him take that home to himself and believe that I mean to be personal with him and to such barefaced hypocrites as he!”