Resisting the Adversary

Last Sunday I had an interesting lesson in one of my meetings and wanted to share some of what I felt I learned.

The lesson began with the teacher sharing a story:

A man travelling through the country came to a large city, very rich and splendid; he looked at it and said to his guide, "This must be a very righteous people, for I can only see but one little devil in this great city."

The guide replied, "You do not understand, sir. This city is so perfectly given up to wickedness ... that it requires but one devil to keep them all in subjection."

Travelling on a little farther, he came to a rugged path and saw an old man trying to get up the hill side, surrounded by seven great, big, coarse-looking devils.

"Why," says the traveler, "this must be a tremendously wicked old man! See how many devils there are around him!"

"This," replied the guide, "is the only righteous man in the country; and there are seven of the biggest devils trying to turn him out of his path, and they cannot do it."  (Journal of Discourses, 5:363-64.)

I rather enjoyed the story and loved the illustration that as we become stronger in faith and more set in following the commandments and in following the example of the Lord the more we can withstand from the adversary. It also illustrates the idea that as we strive more and more to follow the commandments and the Lord, the more the adversary wants us to fall. Thus, he will try all the more to get us to fall, but as we continue to rely on the Lord we will find that his power to deliver and strengthen us is far greater than that of the devil and his angels.

As I continued to think about this story and what it brought to mind, I was reminded of a quote from C.S. Lewis:

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, ...you find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. ...We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means...."  (From Mere Christianity)

 It is in resisting the attempts of the devil to turn us from our desired path that we not only learn how hard temptation can be, but we also increase our strength to resist him in the future. Just as using our physical muscles strengthens them, exercising our agency to choose good or to pass over evil things empowers us to continue to do so in the future, in addition to obtaining blessings from our Heavenly Father for obeying his commandments.

As the lesson continued, I was somewhat bothered by the fact that people continued to look at problems in their life with the idea that they were surrounded by devils. My mind was drawn to two different scriptures that remind us that the Lord is with us:

"...For I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." (D&C 84:88)

Now, with this scripture, I realize that the Lord is speaking to those that he is sending out to declare his word to the world (to the early missionaries of the Church), but I believe that this applies to all of us. If we are living as we should and trying to be examples of the faith, of the believers, then the Lord will "go before us" and his angels shall be "round about  [us], to bear [us] up." And we know that the Lord wants us to succeed in this life. He wants us to be able to return to be with him and he wants us to live with the Spirit as part of our lives. He will help us and lift us up if we will seek him and make him a part of our lives. The other scripture is this one from the Old Testament:

 "And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

"And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

"And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." (2 Kings 6:15-17) 

This is a bit of a dramatic example, but it is the truth! If we trust the Lord and his promises and are seeking and striving to do what he has asked of us, he will help and be with us. He will not eliminate all of our troubles, but at the very least, he will not leave us to walk through our troubles and tribulations alone.

The last thing that came to me was the thought that if someone thinks that they have not been living the commandments or that the Lord couldn't want to help them or can't because of their actions, remember: You are a child of God. You are his child and he wants you to succeed and to be happy. Our God is a merciful God. If we seek his help, he will give it to us. As we seek to escape the influence of the adversary, we should seek the Lord and his help. The atonement of Jesus Christ was not made only to save us from death and our sins, but also to help us "according to [our] infirmities." (Alma 7:12) "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17)