May 1 2020, Orem, Utah
by Chauncey C Riddle
Click for Part 1
Spiritual Death: Adam and Eve and their posterity were greatly reduced in their capacity to perceive the spiritual world around them because of the Fall. The narrow window of spiritual perception left to mankind after the Fall was to be able to receive the light of Christ, which is our conscience, and to have a contrary influence from Satan enticing us to do our own will instead of following Christ. Adam and Eve saw and talked with Satan before their Fall, but after their fall they and we could not see and talk with him. But he can still talk to us, to tempt us. And this makes us agents to choose for ourselves.
But we no longer see that every living thing has a spirit counterpart. We no longer see the hand of God governing all things. We do not see that Satan is the destroyer, having been given the power of death (which he may use only by explicit permission from God). We cannot see that God controls the weather, the placement and rotation of the earth, the crops of the earth, the wildlife on land and sea, and the history of nations. We cannot see that it is God who has allowed Covid-19 to sweep the earth to help mankind be more humble and God-fearing (God-respecting). We cannot see the truth of the past and future, but must fabricate accounts to jolly ourselves into thinking we understand history and can guess the future accurately. The loss of spiritual information occasioned by the Fall of Adam is as spectacular and devastating as it would be if suddenly all mankind became physically blind and had to do everything by touch, smell and feel.
The beauty of being spiritually dead is that we are reduced to the status of children who do not understand the universe. In our ignorance we do not see what really causes what, what has happened or what will happen. We only really know the physical now, and we are forced to focus on the now and make decisions based on our desires rather than on our knowledge. Through trial and error we learn enough to do what we need to do to live and perpetuate the race of mankind. But most of what we humans think we know is but belief (faith) in something we cannot prove.
And that is precisely why God engineered the Fall of Adam: that every human would have to live by faith, not knowledge. Faith is to trust something we believe but cannot prove. Every human lives by faith in something he or she cannot prove but believes. The principal sources of ideas in which to put our faith are our conscience, the light of Christ, and our contrary temptations, the darkness and misinformation of Satan. Thus human beings are forced to believe either Satan or Christ, or some mixture that pleases them. And thus the stage is set for a perfect probation for each human being that comes to accountability. We each show what we really want to do and be, preparing ourselves for the rest of eternity that we have chosen.
Carnal, sensual and devilish: Because of our becoming spiritually dead in the Fall of Adam we humans are carnal: we pay more attention to the things of the physical body than the things of our spirit body. We are sensual: we pay more attention to our physical senses and the information they give us than we do to our spiritual sensations, especially our conscience. We are devilish: our default reaction is to listen to Satan and our own will rather than obeying Christ through our conscience. But obviously some humans are more carnal, more sensual and more devilish than others. Most people simply float, doing “what comes naturally.” Others swim upstream trying to be less carnal, sensual and devilish to some degree that suits them. Thus we humans are free to some degree.
We Lie: In a past issue of National Geographic (July 1987?) there is a long article about why human beings lie, written from the perspective of modern science, which science denies the existence of Satan and the spiritual realm. The author points out that almost every human being lies. But the author is at a loss to explain why. Categories of possible causes are given, such as: customary sayings being repeated, the desire for advantage over others, the desire to appear to be different than one is, etc. But no answer is given, even hypothetically (scientists delight in hypotheses). The gospel answer is that humans lie because Satan tells them they will be pleased at telling some lie they desire to tell. And thus humans lie even when it is to their advantage not to do so, just because they want to. That gospel answer is not science. But science has no monopoly on truth.
False scientific hypotheses: Science was invented long ago because of obviously bad answers to questions provided by the apostate religions which abound among mankind. To be scientific originally meant to pay attention only to ideas which could be proven using the human physical senses and not pretending to any spiritual influences. But modern science has also been corrupted by Satanic influence. A prime example of that corruption is the very popular theory that all life forms on this earth evolved from some original spontaneous generation of life, and that all present life forms have been produced by spontaneous changes of genetic makeup of that original living being. But this is bad science because no one has ever observed either the spontaneous generation of life or the spontaneous creation of new species of living forms. Some minor variations of the physical appearance of living species have been observed: that is called microevolution. But origin of life and change of species has never been observed: that would be macroevolution. At the anniversary of the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, Time Magazine ran a feature article giving supposed proofs of organic evolution. But every item they cited was an example of microevolution. There were no examples of macroevolution. But many people would rather believe in evolution without God than to believe that God created all life because they don’t want a God. They don’t want a God because if there is a God they will be held accountable for their sins. And they don’t want to be held accountable. So they believe in evolution.
False historical accounts: Because the father of lies, Satan, does his work so well, many lies masquerade as truth. One example close to home is the truth about what took down the twin towers in New York City on 9/11. The “official” explanation is that the two airplanes that crashed into the buildings and the resulting fires caused the buildings to collapse. But no other steel and concrete building elsewhere has ever been taken down by a fire. Add to that the fact that a third nearby building that had neither airplane impact nor fire was also taken down in exactly the same way and the same time as were the twin towers, collapsing from the bottom. No one has ever explained how the third building came down. Every thinking person will realize that we have not been give the truth as to how the twin towers came down.
False cause and effect: Some of us will remember that for many years it was maintained that there was no scientific evidence that smoking tobacco causes cancer. That has now been reversed. We now know that the evidence for the truth was long suppressed. Another example of science gone astray was the pretense that margarine is better for human health than is dairy butter. That pretense has now been admitted to be false. But there are still many person who choose margarine over butter because of that falsehood.
False Social Science: For many years it was the official position of the U. S. Government that American Indians were a genetically inferior race and therefore their cultural heritage should be ignored and destroyed at will. This idea was the stance of John Wesley Powell of Lake Powell fame, who was a curator at the Smithsonian and approved of the destruction of American Indian artifacts. Thanks to that sentiment, many of the archeological remains of the Hopewell and Adena cultures have been wantonly destroyed in the eastern United States.
But enough examples of the power of Satan over mankind, not to mention war and genocide. The real question is: What can you and I do to turn the power of Satan over us to our advantage?
- We can be humble, not pretend to be a law unto ourselves. As little children we can faithfully listen to our conscience. Doing that consistently will eventually lead us to Christ and to the truth and to his righteousness.
- We can be honest in heart, even as Christ is the Truth and tells nothing but the truth.
- We can work at overcoming every shred of selfishness by sharing all the good we have.
- We can accept the witness of the Holy Ghost as we read the Book of Mormon and Bible.
- We can be baptized and gain the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.
- We can minister good things in Christ to everyone and everything around us.
- We can uphold and follow those who preside in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- We can follow the covenant path unto becoming like our Savior.
We can come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. But only if we really want to do so.