Good and Evil – We
Must Fight
In the pre-mortal life we were all with our Heavenly
Father. He had a plan for us to gain
experience and to learn. As part of this
plan, we would all come here to earth.
Satan, our brother wanted to force all of us to be righteous so that
none would fail, and he wanted the glory for himself. Jesus offered to become our savior,
sacrificing himself and becoming our redeemer.
One-third of the hosts of heaven followed Satan and were cast out of
Heaven. The rest of us chose the
Father’s plan and have come here to earth.
This means that for all people on the earth at this time, there are many
of these fallen spirits for every single person on the earth. Their focus is our unhappiness.
I believe that Lucifer is real and that he wants us to be
unhappy. I believe that spirits are here with us on the earth and that they can
whisper to us and we hear them in our minds. In extreme cases, when humans are
very wicked, I believe that those spirits can take control of those people controlling
their speech and their actions. They follow us around continuously – day and
night. Fortunately, there are also good
spirits all around us as well. These are
angels from heaven who are here to help, protect and intervene in our lives,
when permitted. The real influences of good and evil are right here, all around
us.
Were Satan to appear and try to get us to follow him, we
would clearly reject him. But because he
is the master deceiver he knows exactly the best way to get us. Shakespeare
wrote, “The prince of darkness is a gentleman.”[i] I prefer to think of him as Peter describes
in the New Testament: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”[1] In Nephi we are given insight on how Lucifer
endeavors to deceive us. “And others will he pacify, and lull them away into
carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth,
all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully
down to hell. And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is
no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he
whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from
whence there is no deliverance.[2]
C. S. Lewis, a Christian author, describes in a fictional
letter, a conversation between the master devil, Screwtape, and an apprentice
devil Wormwood. “You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless,
like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular
wickedness. … It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their
cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the nothing.
… Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft
underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”[ii]
If we think about how Satan can influence us, and what
methods he can use, it becomes clear that the means by which he can talk to us
is through our thoughts and mind. Elder
Joseph Fielding Smith taught, “We should be on guard always to resist Satan’s
advances. … He has power to place thoughts in our minds and to whisper to us in
unspoken impressions to entice us to satisfy our appetites or desires and in
various other ways he plays upon our weaknesses and desires.”[iii] We
know that these may be whispered to our minds by bad spirits.
For a long time, if I had a discouraging, inappropriate, or
other bad thoughts come into my mind, it made me feel like I wasn’t as good of
a person as I should have been. When I
realize that some of those thoughts might indeed come from those evil spirits
it makes me feel better about myself. I realize that I am not a bad person, I
am just in a fight. This is the fight for
my thoughts and actions.
In the Bible it says, as a man “thinketh in his heart, so is
he” (Proverbs 23:7). President, Boyd K.
Packer said, “If you can fill your mind with clean and constructive thoughts,
then there will be no room for these persistent imps, and they will leave.”[iv]
There are several things that we can do to arm ourselves in
this fight.
- Pray. I believe that this literally puts up
spiritual barriers around us, and causes evil spirits to flee or at least
to take a step away from us. We can command evil spirits to depart, and we
can request good spirits to come to our aid.
- Read
good things, particularly the scriptures.
Anything that invites the Holy Ghost will be poison to evil
influences.
- Put
ourselves only in good places, and flee when we find ourselves where we do
not want to be. In a home where the Holy Spirit can come, evil spirits
will go away.
- Be a
peacemaker. Help avoid arguments,
and hurt feelings. Say you are sorry quickly. It is ok to lose for the
sake of the relationship and to keep a positive spirit. “Be gentle and
loving in deed and in thought.”[v]
- Fill
our minds, our eyes and ears with good things. Listen to good music; look at only good
things on the Internet.
- Be
careful with what is painted as “fun, or exciting” if it does not “feel”
right. The deceiver seeks to
destroy our spirituality. “What the devil portrays as fun can be
spiritually fatal.”[vi]
While on my mission, I remember someone saying that we work
so hard to have the Spirit with us and then it is lost so easily. I have found this to be true. Small things,
like hearing a bad song, having someone swear around us, seeing something
inappropriate, or hearing an argument; these things can cause a dramatic drop
in our ability to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. When I was young, I had some friends tell me
that I was a peacemaker. I think the
reason they said this was that I was always uncomfortable when there was
arguing and contention. Now I understand
that it was my sensitivity to the Spirit that made me feel that way. We must all strive to keep ourselves and
those we love, in a happy and loving environment.
We must protect ourselves by not staying in places where
evil spirits can reach us. Sometimes
this is in a car with friends who are listening to bad music, or going
somewhere they should not go. It can
also be in someone’s house that is not protected by worthy priesthood
power. We must fight to have the Holy
Ghost with us. “There seems to be no middle ground. When men reject the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, they are left to their own wisdom and to the
promptings of evil spirits.”[vii]
This fight against Lucifer and his angels is one of the
reasons we do many of the things we do.
Family prayer, Family Home Evening, scripture study, playing good music,
putting pictures of the temple in our home; these are all done to invite the
Holy Ghost into our lives which leaves no place for evil spirits. We must
literally make our home a sanctuary, a place that is protected and where only
good spirits may enter. This is the
reason that we must not allow contention in our family. Jesus himself declared,
“For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is
not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he
stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another”.[3] We must make our home one of these good places
– filled with prayer, positive communication, happiness, and centered on
Christ..
Remember that “The fight with sin is real.”[4] It is truly a battle between good and evil
and the prize is our eternal happiness. Prayer is our main sword in the fight
and we should use it often. I know that Heavenly Father wants us to be
successful, and that we will have all of the help we need, if we just ask.
[1] New
Testament, 1 Peter 5:8
[2] Book of
Mormon, 2 Nephi 28:21-22
[3] Book of
Mormon, 3 Nephi. 11:29
[4] “Put
Your Shoulder to the Wheel,” Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, no. 252
[i] King
Lear, act 3, scene 4, line 148.
[ii] The
Screwtape Letters (1961), 56.
[iii] (Answers
to Gospel Questions, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., 5 vols., Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1957–66, 3:81.
[iv] New
Era, 2008, April ,Worthy Music, Worthy Thoughts, Boyd K. Packer
[v]LDS
Children’s Songbook, p. 78, “I’m trying to be like Jesus”
[vi] Ensign,
2004, November , Be Not Deceived, Elder Dallin H. Oaks
[vii]
Liahona, 1980,August, Guidance of the Holy Spirit, President Marion G. Romney