The Temptation to Go to Your Friends For Advice But Not Your Parents or Heavenly Father

The Temptation to Adopt Your Friends’ Attitudes Though Not Conducive to the Spirit

The Temptation to Prefer Your Friends’ Ways of Doing Things, Even if They Aren’t Right

The Temptation to Depend on Your Friends for Support But Not Your Parents or Heavenly Father

1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD,

that take counsel,

     but not of me;

and that cover with a covering,

     but not of my spirit,

that they may add sin to sin:

2 That walk to go down into Egypt,

     and have not asked at my mouth;

to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,

and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

3         Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame,

          and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.   

(Isaiah 30:1-3)

     These verses are so applicable to teenagers and their friendships that it’s just plain scary!  Isaiah might as well be lecturing a teenage Israel on behalf of their Heavenly Father.  The issue is Israel’s friendship with Egypt.

     Woe to the rebellious children. . .that take counsel, but not of me - The Lord is irritated that Israel had gone to idolatrous Egypt for advice instead of Him, especially since He has the best advice.  If the Lord (our perfect Father) gets irritated when we don’t go to Him for the best advice, then our earthly parents are also allowed to get irritated if we don’t go to them, since they also have great advice.

     There’s a difference between our friends’ advice and the advice of our parents and the Lord.  While our friends may be good, they tend to think more about the fun of the moment, whereas our parents and the Lord have the much longer view in mind.  Our parents and the Lord advise in terms of our physical and spiritual well-being, which makes it the best advice.

     [A]nd that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit - This “covering” refers to the attitudes and opinions that we take on as a result of talking with our friends and absorbing their ways.  If Israel had been associating with the Lord and the prophets, the Spirit of the Lord would have rubbed off on them, but they were associating with idolatrous Egyptians, and so had picked up an idolatrous attitude and put it on like a cloak so that it covered them.

     When I was in college, I had a classmate in one of my classes who had a very unique and forceful way of expressing herself, but her attitude was extremely bitter and sarcastic.  I’ll call her Kate.  I gravitate toward people who have vivid personalities, so I started to talk to Kate outside of class a little, hoping that her attitude was only a result of that class and that she would lighten up afterward.  It soon became obvious that this was not the case, but I persisted in talking to her outside class.  One day after I had chatted with her I noticed that Kate’s attitude was beginning to darken my own optimistic outlook on life, but I had become acquainted with her enough that when I thought of abandoning my growing friendship with her I didn’t want to do it.  However, as I thought about it, the Spirit impressed itself firmly upon my mind, bringing me to a realization if I did not stop associating with her outside of class I would become as bitter and sarcastic as she was.  I didn’t want that to happen, so I stopped going out of my way to talk to her outside of class.

     Some of you may chastise me by saying that I could have been a good influence on her, but here’s an analogy that perfectly describes the principle the Spirit wanted me to know - when you drop a white glove into a mud puddle, the puddle doesn’t become “glove-y” - so I know there are situations when the harm you can suffer from a bad influence far outweighs the good influence you would exert.  Spencer W. Kimball said,  “Always keep good company.  Never waste an hour with anyone who doesn’t lift you up and encourage you.”1  When the Spirit warns you about a person, listen and obey; don’t delay.

     Furthermore, if the Lord has a right to warn us from being friends with certain people, our earthly parents do too.  Your parents can help you notice which friends are a bad influence on you, because they can see objectively how your behavior changes after being with them.  If you tend to start smiting your siblings with a rod each time you come home from visiting your friends Laman and Lemuel, that’s a tip-off to your parents that those friends aren’t a good influence on you.

     That walk to go down into Egypt - An important lesson suggests itself to me from the phrase “that walk to go down into Egypt” along with the knowledge that Egypt was idolatrous.  If Israel went to Egypt, they would be subjected to practices and traditions and attitudes everywhere which they would know were wrong, but which they would be powerless to change.  The lesson is that when you go visit some of your friends, you may also be subjected to practices and traditions and attitudes that you know are wrong, but which you can do nothing about.  So why would you want to be in that kind of environment, even to be with a friend?

     If we know that the ways and traditions at our friends’ homes are not as righteous as the ways to which we have been brought up, going there on purpose to participate in what we know to be wrong is “walking to go down to Egypt”.  It is seeking to regress in spirituality, especially if we find ourselves envying those ways.  Just like the Lord would not want Israel to regress back to bondage in Egypt, the Lord does not want us to regress back to spiritual ignorance and sin.  Instead, what you can do is invite your friends to your house and let them see the positive difference. 

     For example, when I was about fourteen or fifteen my parents decided that they would no longer allow us to sleep over at our friends’ houses, because the movies that were shown at our friends’ houses tended to be inappropriate.  If they allowed it to continue, we would have been “walking to go down to Egypt”.  Instead, my parents decided that if there would be a sleepover, it should be at our house, because my parents had a large number of clean movies that we would all enjoy.  It was like inviting Egypt up to visit Israel. 

     [T]o strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt - Israel trusted the strength of Egypt more than they trusted the strength of God, which was really foolish, because God was more powerful than Egypt.  (Remember all those plagues?) In the same way, we should not trust our friends more than our parents and our Heavenly Father, because our parents and Heavenly Father are more powerful than our friends.  They can do greater things for us than our friends.  For instance, do your friends have the money to pay for you to go to college?  Would they put themselves in debt so that they could pay for you to go to college?  They probably wouldn’t.  Your parents could.  Could your friends give you a car for your personal use?  Maybe if they were rich they could, but would they?  Your parents could.  (They may not choose to, but they could.)  Can your friends help you pass a test that you’ve studied hard for and prayed about?  No.  But Heavenly Father could.  Do your friends have any power to help when you’re stranded out in the middle of nowhere in a howling blizzard with a flat tire, and no cell phone?  No.  Can Heavenly Father?  You bet he could.Your Heavenly Father can support you when your friends cannot.  Your Heavenly Father can strengthen you when your friends cannot.  Your Heavenly Father can save you when your friends cannot.  Your Heavenly Father can be with you even at times your friends cannot.  It is easy to see that Heavenly Father is the best friend you’ve got. 

The Temptation to Let Fear of Other People and What They Will Say Keep You from Choosing the Right

     What’s the fundamental reasoning behind this temptation?  It’s the difference between someone who is in your face and someone who is not.  We’re far more likely to be worried about someone who will make fun of our behavior to our faces than to be worried about what the Lord thinks about our behavior, because He is absent.  ...Or is He? 

I, even I, am he that comforteth you:

     who art thou,

          that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die,

          and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;

(Isaiah 51:12)

     I, even I, am he that comforteth you - One name for the Holy Ghost is “the Comforter”.  One of his duties is to comfort us with warm, fuzzy, happy feelings when we are valiant, even when everyone around us is loudly disgusted at us, because our choosing the right spoils their fun or inconveniences them.  The Holy Ghost is a member of the Godhead; we can actually have a member of the Godhead with us always, if we keep ourselves worthy!  If a member of the Godhead is with us, can we really say that God is absent from us?

     Once I went with my husband and his brother Chod and his wife Nikkala and my husband’s sister Jolyn to visit Bear Lake up in Utah.  The parking lot charged $7 per car for the privilege of parking there.  No one was around to make sure we paid or not.  It was “self-service” and you were supposed to put the money into an envelope and put the envelope into a locked box.  We were going to pay as we drove in, but Chod noticed that there were no envelopes, and the door of the box had been broken open.  It seemed silly to pay when there seemed to be no way to make sure that the right people got the money.  We played around at Bear Lake and froze our toes in the water for about an hour, and then drove out of the parking lot past the guardhouse, the lock box and the gate.  It was evident nobody was planning to pay.  As we drove away down the road away I started to get a hot feeling in my chest, like something was wrong.  I realized that I was going to have to insist on going back and paying the $7, because I knew it was the right thing to do, and my conscience wasn’t going to let me alone if we didn’t.  Chod was driving.  I asked him to turn around and go back.  I told him that it was going to bother me if I didn’t pay the $7.  He grumbled a little, but he was nice enough to turn around and go back.  Everyone in the car thought I was very silly, but I didn’t care.  I put the money on the windowsill of the guardhouse next to the box.  As I turned away, the Spirit gave me a very good feeling inside.  (I knew that even if the next people who came through that gate saw the money and stole it, I had still done the right thing, and God would give me credit for that.)  That good feeling was more than worth the flack I had to take.

     [W]ho art thou - We know who we are.  We’re children of God!  Should children of God be afraid of “a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass”?

     So what does this mean that says “ the son of man which shall be made as grass”?  Welllll, I’ve heard from a teacher who visits Israel periodically that in Israel it is very dry most of the time, except for a season or two when it is very rainy.  After all that rain, all kinds of plants pop up - grass and flowers.  Then it is dry again for a long, long stretch, and everything that isn’t irrigated withers and dies.  Isaiah is looking at mortal man’s life span from the eternal perspective, comparing it to this grass that lives and dies very quickly.

     But perhaps this is not so much mortal death that Isaiah is talking about, but spiritual death.  If someone makes fun of you for doing what is right, they isolate themselves from the spiritual nourishment of doing what’s right.  Without that, their spirituality starts to wither and die, like grass in a drought starts to turn brown and die. 

The Temptation to Be Friends with People Who Pressure You to Break the Commandments

     A friend that argues that you shouldn’t do what is right is like a devil tempting you.  Yes, I know I’m using strong words, but it is true.  Satan tempts us to do evil.  He also tries to discourage us from doing good things.  And he wants us to have friends that do the same thing, so that he doesn’t have to work so hard.  Satan would say:

Weaken ye the strong hands,

and break the vigorous knees.

Say to them that are of a courageous heart, Be weak, fear:

Behold, your God delayeth his vengeance,

even God with his recompense;

perhaps he will not even come at all.

     On the other hand, we have Isaiah’s definition of true friendship and what true friends should do for each other. 

3 Strengthen ye the weak hands,

and confirm the feeble knees.

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart,

     Be strong,

     fear not:

     behold, your God will come with vengeance,

     even God with a recompense;

     he will come and save you. 

(Isaiah 35:3-4)

     True friends are supposed to encourage each other to choose the right.  Every one of us have weak moments when we are about to do something wrong, and a righteous friend who pleads with us not to do it is like an angel pleading with us, “Be strong!”  When we are in trouble, not only does a true friend do their best to help, but they remind us to seek God’s help too.  When others are mistreating us, a true friend reminds us that at the Second Coming wrongs will be righted, and defends us.  When we talk about the gospel with this type of friend, many times they can teach us new things and enlighten us where before we barely understood.

     In college one of my roommates was such a valiant and good friend that occasionally she would say to me, “I’m going to be your mother for a minute” and then she would give me a stiff, finger-wagging lecture about the righteous things I should have been doing but wasn’t, sometimes throwing in a guilt trip for good measure.  It was like the spirit of my mother suddenly took possession of her body long enough to talk some sense into me.  Most astonishing.  (It’s one thing to be lectured by one’s mother, but it is quite another to have a friend do it.)  However, I could not be offended, because I saw that she wanted what was best for me.  I had a few opportunities to lecture her as well, when I saw that she needed it, and so we did each other no end of good. 

     A valiant friend is priceless.  I challenge you to become a true friend to your friends, and seek for friends who will be true to you.

     So, What have we learned from Isaiah here? 

1. 1)We need to ask the Lord and our parents for advice, rather than our friends. 
   

2. 2)We need to find friends whose ways and attitudes are consistent with the Spirit of God
   

3. 3)We need to depend on our parents and the Lord, rather than just depending upon our friends.
   

4. 4)You don’t need to fear people making fun of you for being good, because a member of the Godhead (the Holy Ghost) will be with you and will express his approval of your good deeds.
   

5. 5)Look for friends that will strengthen you when you are weak, not tempt you.
   

Notes

1 The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball, Bookcraft Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, 1982, p. 262.