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IX
Satan’s Plan to Destroy Free Agency
Satan’s Opposition To The Plan Of The Lord
In the foregoing chapters, we have discussed the Lord’s plan for providing and protecting the free agency of man and the affirmative commandments He has given for carrying it out. Let us now turn our attention to His negative commandments. These prohibitions may properly be called the plan of Satan because everything the Lord has forbidden, the Devil is trying to get us to do. He is “an enemy of all righteousness,” (Mosiah 4:14) and “an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually.” (Moro. 7:12) His purpose is to induce men to destroy the elements of freedom—life, liberty, property, and knowledge—and the three organizations through which the Lord provides and protects these elements—the family, the Church, and the Lord’s form of government. Let us consider how Satan might best accomplish these purposes.
Satan’s Plan To Destroy The Elements Of Freedom
Satan’s Plan To Destroy Life
The Lord has issued the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill,” and has decreed the death penalty for murder. In opposition thereto, Satan induced Cain to kill Abel and has been constantly engaged in promoting the destruction of human life since then. The prophet Moroni described him as “that liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning.” (Ether 8:25) Men may murder to get gain as did Cain, to protect secret oaths as did Lamech, or because of passion stemming from anger, revenge, lust, etc. This crime occurs sporadically in nearly every society, and would happen much more often were it not for the institution of government whose function it is to seek out and punish it.
But Satan is not satisfied with an occasional death. He desires mass murder, and in order to achieve this he must gain control of that organization who’s business it is to take human life and possesses the means of doing so. The only organization which can legally and efficiently perform this task for him is government, and until he is able to subvert it to his purpose, it will be the very organization which will thwart him. Therefore, it is only logical to assume that he has been trying to capture control of this supreme physical force in society since the beginning. Once in control, he can induce his servants to use the armies and navies at their disposal to wage international war, thus committing the mass murder he desires. The awful waste of human life which has resulted from war is incalculable and the history books are filled with accounts of power hungry men who have induced the citizens of their nations to support them in waging aggressive warfare. The Book of Mormon relates how two great civilizations perished in suicidal conflicts when Satan gained control of the hearts and minds of the people.
Not only can Satan induce government to destroy human life through war, but he can also turn it against its own citizenry. While it is in accordance with the Lord’s laws and judgments to inflict the death penalty for certain crimes, government may also be used to kill the innocent on a massive scale. As great as has been the loss of life from war during the twentieth century, the number of people who have been put to death in gas chambers, execution cellars, concentration camps, and by deliberate starvation by the officers of their own government may be much greater. Millions upon millions have been murdered for no other reason than that they belonged to a certain race, owned property, or did not agree with the political system which committed these horrible atrocities.
It is most apparent that Satan can achieve his purpose of mass murder only by inducing men to prostitute the power of government. In most cases, he must do this by deceiving them into believing that they are justified in using the armies, the navies, and the police to kill and to get power and gain.
Satan’s Plan To Destroy Individual Liberty And The Right And Control Of Property
Since one of the primary motives for slavery is to enable the master to steal the fruits of the slave’s labor, it is convenient to discuss Satan’s plan for destroying individual freedom, and his plan for destroying the right and control of property at the same time. In essence, they amount to the same thing. Of course an additional important motive for slavery is to enable the master to satisfy that satanic tendency to exercise unrighteous dominion which is common to almost all men. These two motives of power and gain are so strong in men that Satan has been able to induce them to practice slavery in some form in almost every age and in almost every nation.
The Lord’s method of protecting these two elements of freedom is to use government to outlaw and punish those who injure or destroy them. While the Ten Commandments did not mention slavery specifically, the prohibition against stealing would necessarily cover it. The Nephite laws mentioned both, (Alma 1:18, 27:9) and one of the announced purposes for establishing the laws and Constitution of the United States was that “it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.” (D&C 101:79)
The word slavery brings to mind a practice in a nation where the right of private property is protected for some, but not for others. The property-owning class is permitted to own farms, factories, and other facilities for the production and distribution of goods and services, and to use the slave labor of the other class to operate the facilities. The police power of government not only gives its consent, but also protects and enforces the practice by recapturing slaves who run away and punishing those who flout the authority of their masters. If government prohibited slavery and thus refused to lend its aid to enforce the system, it could not operate. Therefore, unless Satan can induce those in control of government to sanction the institution, it is virtually impossible for him to destroy freedom in this manner.
But once again, Satan is not satisfied to destroy the freedom of only part of the population. He desires a system which will enslave everyone. This he can accomplish by using government to destroy the right of private property for everyone. Since a man’s property is his life—that with which he sustains life and uses his productive life to obtain, and since a man’s property is also his liberty—the means by which he exercises his freedom or accomplishes his purposes—all Satan needs to do to make everyone a slave is to use the police power to deny the right and control of property. Without this one element of freedom, the other three elements are either useless or unusable.
Those forms of government under which the right of private property is abolished are called socialism and communism. Under each of these systems, the state owns all instruments for the production and distribution of goods and services. Ownership of farms, homes, factories, machinery, etc., by the individual is forbidden by law. The state, being the exclusive owner of these facilities, owns the food, clothing, shelter and other consumable products which they produce. It also is the one and only employer in the nation.
The state, being the exclusive producer, can determine who will consume what is produced. Having plenary authority to do so, it may determine the wage of every employee, the price of every product, and the availability of goods and services to every consumer. Under these conditions, the individual is at the complete mercy of the state. No plantation owner ever exercised more control over his slaves than the socialist state does over its citizens. In both cases, the master determines what work the slave will perform, the hours and conditions of labor, what home he will occupy, what clothes he may wear, what food he may eat, and what will be done with the fruits of his labor.
But the one essential difference between the two systems is, that under slavery as practiced outside of socialism, at least the slave master has some degree of freedom. Having the right to own and control property, he is able to exercise freedom of religion, speech, press and occupation. He can determine what he will produce with the facilities he owns, and also what he will consume. Within the limit of his means, he may achieve his purposes. However, under socialism, the bureaucratic slave master is also a slave of the same system. The same laws which prevent the worker from acquiring and controlling property, thereby making him independent and free, also prevent his boss from doing so. They both are employees of the same employer; are subject to the same restrictions regarding the use of their time; and neither has any hope of escaping from bondage as long as the system continues. True, the slave master may occupy a larger house, consume richer food, and wear better clothing; but neither of them is free to change jobs at will, accumulate property, nor use the states property to achieve their own goals. Neither can claim to be free.
Not only do socialism and communism destroy freedom by abolishing private property, but they also achieve another goal of Satan at the same time. The vast army of bureaucrats which is the hallmark of every communist, socialist, and welfare state system provides unlimited opportunities for those who seek positions in which they can exercise unrighteous dominion. Socialism is then Satan’s perfect system of slavery. To establish it, he must induce those in control of government to use the police power to prevent individual ownership and control of property.
Satan’s Plan To Destroy Knowledge Of The Truth
Since no one can achieve any goal without complying with those immutable laws upon which the result depends, and since no one can consciously obey a law without knowing what that law is, true knowledge is indispensable to the exercise of freedom. The Lord has given the commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” and has consigned liars to the lowest degree of glory. (D&C 76:103) On the other hand, Satan is known as the “father of lies,” and it is his great purpose “to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my [the Lord’s] voice.” (Moses 4:4)
Satan can induce men to deceive and lie to one another to get gain, to escape punishment for evil, and because of other weaknesses such as pride. But if the laws of the land punish perjury, give damages for deceit, and protect freedom of expression, Satan’s efforts to induce men to intentionally deceive, are largely thwarted. Only when he can control government can he effectively and massively destroy truth. But having done this, his powers in this field are almost unlimited. Probably his most effective and far-reaching device is that of socialized education. By this satanic scheme, he takes children from their parents at an early age and places them under the tutelage of teachers whose jobs depend upon their teaching what the state wants taught. By using such teachers and carefully selected courses and textbooks, he can fill their innocent and unsuspecting minds with his false doctrines.
Control over government also gives him control over radio and television, over newspapers and magazines, over lecture halls and moving picture productions. Only those who will write, speak, and portray the lies he wants told will be permitted to use these powerful communication media. Then when we add to these controls the power to deny freedom of worship and assembly and to punish any who speak out against the “official lies,” we can see that Satan’s power to destroy truth is practically complete when he controls government. It is the ultimate weapon for this purpose; whereas if it is used to protect freedom and truth, he is virtually helpless.
How Satan Can Best Destroy The Lord’s Three Organizations Which Provide And Protect Freedom
By the act of corrupting government and putting his disciples in control of it, Satan has abolished a key organization in the Lord’s plan of freedom. By this single act, he has destroyed that agency the Lord has established to punish evil, and replaced it with an equally powerful force which can now be used to commit and protect evil. No other goal can be of greater importance to him than this one.
Furthermore, control of government also puts Satan in a position to destroy families and the Lord’s church. With the police power subject to his control, there are a variety of means Satan can use to prevent the family from functioning. Through socialized education and universal military training, he can take children from their parents and place them either in public schools or in the armed forces, thus making it impossible for parents to perform the most vital responsibility they have—the training of their own children.
Using the police power, he can destroy the right of private property thus preventing parents from owning a home in which they can raise their children. By this same means, he can effectively prevent them from supporting and educating their children as they wish. His control over the means by which life is sustained and freedom exercised makes it possible for him to effectively destroy the Lord’s organization for the rearing of children.
Control over government also gives Satan all the power he needs to destroy the Lord’s Church; its property can be confiscated; its meetings forbidden; its missionary work and publications banned; and its prophets imprisoned or executed. No religious movement can succeed in the face of determined opposition by government. History is replete with instances where the police power has been used to support and protect one religion while forcibly preventing the operation of all others. However, today Satan has been able to use the police power to abolish all churches and establish an official state religion of atheism. This is the ultimate goal for which he seeks, for as Mormon has told us:
whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil;for after this manner doth the devil work,for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. (Moroni 7:17)
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