15 November 1968
God created man to be free—to act, and not to be always acted upon. The work of Satan is to thwart the work of God; Satan thus strives to make men captive, to be always acted upon rather than being free to act for themselves. Satan’s work seems to prosper, for most men are not free. They are subject to and controlled by physical and psychological forces.
The mission of the servants of Christ in this world is to set these captives free. Any human being who is of age and of normal mentality who comes in contact with the Witness of the Holy Ghost is momentarily set free from whatever hereditary, physical, mental, emotional, and social forces that have fettered his spirit through his flesh. In that moment of freedom, every child of God, every human being, may choose to become permanently and eternally free by accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ and being born again. Being born again, the new son or daughter of Christ has the opportunity to proceed consciously, deliberately, and freely, to replace each bad habit with a good one, each weakness with a strength, each false notion with truth, each emotional knot with peace and charity. No person born again must make any particular change. He is simply free to mold and shape his own nature and character as he wishes, to progress to that degree of being Christ-like, which is his desire. The real end result for those who love the Lord with a pure love is that they become exactly like Him, with a new mind, a purified heart, an enlightened countenance, and a renewed physical body. Then nothing need bar them from inheriting all that the Savior has, to become joint heirs with Him.
But Satan does not want any joint heirs. His goal is to rule all, as when he sought to take the glory of the Father to himself in the council in heaven. The opposition between Satan and Christ can thus be designated: force and compulsion versus freedom and individual integrity; concentration of power versus equal sharing of power; rule by someone else versus the rule of self; to be acted upon versus acting.
The struggle between Satan and the Lord reflects itself clearly in the problems of teaching, and especially in teaching the Gospel. Thus there are two basic ways of teaching and learning.
Satan’s mode of teaching is to operate through force and pressure, physical and psychological and intellectual, both positive and negative. The following chart depicts the basic alternatives of the Adversary:
| Physical | Psychological | Intellectual | |
| Positive: | Rewards | Kindness | Part Truth |
| Negative: | Punishments | Fear | Lies |
The essence of Satan’s plan is that the person is acted upon: he does not act for himself. The person is manipulated by someone else without regard to his own desires. One great key in detecting Satan’s work is that the principal concern is with ends, not means: “It doesn’t matter what happens to the people involved. Let’s get the job done.”
Many people are fooled at this point because they think Satan must be wholly negative, that he manifests himself only in brute force, in fear, and in lies. They do not understand that he can damn people just as effectively, and preferably, with rewards, kindness, joviality and part truth. Any person will remain confused until he looks for the basic factor: Does a given program set men free or is it simply a more clever and scientific way of controlling them? Only as men are set free in Christ can they grow to be able to become joint heirs. Always to be acted upon is to remain stunted and damned. Thus any program that sets out to produce good ends without building great people in Satan’s program. Satan would have “saved” everyone, through force and compulsion; and thereby no one but him would have had any growth.
There is then only one godly pattern in education. It is to introduce each person to the opportunity of having the Holy Ghost as his constant companion and guide. That holy spirit does not compel men. It only invites and entices everyone to come unto Christ, who is the fountain of all truth and all righteousness. In that still, small voice men are warned and instructed, but they must assert themselves and must choose according to their own desires in either accepting or rejecting. In this necessary choice of accepting or rejecting the way of Christ, men are free, and being free, each accepting choice builds and strengthens their character.
The Holy Ghost will manifest to each person the truth of any or all things at the exact time and circumstances where appropriate. The Holy Ghost will impart gifts that will allow the person to become full of truth, pure in heart, strong in the path of righteousness, powerful in the ways of godliness, full of charity, grateful to serve in the stewardship order of the Holy Priesthood. The Holy Ghost has the perfect tutoring program and ability. The person must struggle, grow, and apply what he is given, or his tutor leaves him. As he struggles and applies, he grows. And he grows to be Christ-like, for the Holy Ghost is the unseen messenger of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. At the end of his life he will not be judged simply for what he has done. He will be judged for what he has become through what he has done. Those who serve Christ through the Holy Spirit will be like Christ. They will see as they are seen and know as they are known. But he who rejected the Holy Spirit will have it said to him when he protests his good works, “Depart from me ye that work iniquity. You never knew me.”
The conclusion of the matter is plain. To teach or to work upon people, even in kindness, benevolence and great service, in such a way that we manipulate them and do not make sure that they understand and taste of the powers of the Holy Spirit is to become a tyrant. It is to try to make them captive to our will. It is to pretend that we of ourselves know what to teach them and how. It is to assert that we can be free to control them, but they must not be free. It is to be as Satan, to perpetuate the captivity and spiritual degradation of men.
On the other hand, to be as a little child to Christ, then under the influence of His Spirit to teach men to come unto him and to partake of his Holy Spirit is to introduce them to the greatest of all wealth and gifts: eternal life. For Christ is God and from Him and in Him come all good things to men. But the Savior does not force men to follow. He sets them free; they choose; they reap the consequences. The Savior does not insist on saving everyone.
For those who are covenant servants of Jesus Christ and who teach covenant servants of Jesus Christ, the choice is simple. We either invite, persuade and entice those whom we teach to learn and know through the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost, or we may proceed to instruct them ourselves. We either lead them to the source from which they may learn all truth, or we thrust our own ideas upon them as truth. We either set them free or we enchain them in the opinions of men. We either serve Christ or Satan.