Spiritual Warfare

Many people have seen God and Jesus Christ in their spiritual glory. Visions, out-of-body and near-death experiences can be found in scripture, journals, books, and other recorded accounts. While such spiritual events occur, Satan is raging to suppress knowledge of the very existence of God--deceiving many. From the time that old serpent, the Devil, appeared in the Garden of Eden, God has promised Adam and Eve--and their posterity--that through Christ, we have had the power to crush his head. With any spiritual experience or insight, we should expect that the Devil is given the opportunity to test and to try us, to see if we are true and faithful to those experiences and the abilities we acquire to bless others. Satan is trying to stop our effectiveness in blessing our families and others.

The power of the Devil is real. He wanted to force righteousness on all of God's children who inherently have the power of free will. Because Satan's plans of "exaltation for all" was rejected in favor of the eternal plan of agency and accountability, he became our bitter enemy, and we are at war. In the end, Satan can only offer hopelessness, fear, despair and suffering. However, we can reach out to Jesus Christ and his redeeming power for our salvation, his arms always remain stretched out to embrace and receive us.

In this episode, the presenter reviews portions of the visions of Alfred Douglas Young, a Mormon Pioneer, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Moses--to establish a pattern of the Devil, who tries to prevent these individuals or persuade them to deny their spiritual encounters with Deity. Through these experiences, we learn that spiritual warfare is going on, and that we can and will win. But we must prepare to endure the buffetings of Satan and cast him out of our lives, as often as necessary. While we may not have the same lofty spiritual experiences of others, we can expect to be tried and tested to the degree that we advance spiritually. We have all the spiritual armor and weapons that we need to overcome and defeat Satan, finding light, peace, and joy.