Cunning Plans of the Devil

And thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and transgression, and the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men. (Alma 28:13)

What are the cunning plans of the devil? Can we see them at work in our lies? Do we see the attempts to flatter or stir up to anger or other strong emotion? Do we notice the attempts to bind down with apathy or discouragement or hopelessness?

Ensnaring hearts makes me think of feelings that are easy to get into, but which are hard to get out of.

I decided I needed more insight on this, so I decided to look at “snare” in the Topical Guide.

The children of Israel were commanded, “if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.” (Ex. 23:33) Since that service to the other gods involved ritual prostitution, that was definitely true. Getting into that sin would be hard to get out of.

Gideon, after his military success, made an ephod and all Israel went whoring after it, and it became a snare unto Gideon and to his house (see Judges 8:27). Material goods can be a snare when everybody loves it but us. If we want to get rid of it because it is having a bad influence and nobody will let us, or we don’t see what’s so great about it.

Saul gave his daughter Michal to David to wife, calculating that she would be a snare to him (see 1 Samuel 18:21) possibly because of her idolatry (see 1 Sam. 19:13). When spouses aren’t equally yoked, the less faithful one can pull down the more faithful one. The same can be said of friends as well.

David curses the wicked in Psalm 69:22, “Let their table become a snare before them; and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.” How might a table be a snare? I think it means what is on the table, not the table itself. In his day, food might have been a snare if people began breaking the Law of Moses concerning clean and unclean foods. It would lead them into thinking they could break other laws as well.  A table can also be a snare to people who have a hard time knowing when to stop eating.

Our mouth can snare us. “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” (Proverbs 18:7) People are affected by their own words, and we can get stuck in patterns of speech that aren’t very kind or healthy. We can get stuck in patterns of criticism or gossip.

Proverbs 22:24-25 warns against making friends with an angry man lest we learn his ways and become ensnared in them. So anger becomes a snare too. I think we can see today how people can get pulled a habit of anger.

Proverbs 29:8 says scornful men bring a city into a snare, but wise men turn away wrath. Scorn causes people to do all kinds of things to avoid being derided, even if it is wrong. It can affect entire communities.

Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” Worrying about what others will think can become a pernicious trap that keeps us timid and powerless.

Jeremiah 50:24 warns Babylon that a snare is laid for them and they are trapped because they fight against the Lord. Rebellion becomes a snare.

In Luke 21:34-35, Jesus warns that in the last days drunkenness, excess, and cares of this life would become a snare to the world before the second coming. So pleasures can be a snare as well. (It would certainly be a cunning plan of the devil to make fun into a snare that traps people.)

1 Timothy 6:9 says that they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. So greed and avarice can be an instrument of entrapment by the devil. The law of sacrifice is one of the Lord’s methods for getting His people loose from that kind of trap.

Alma the elder told the people in Mosiah 23:9 that he was caught in a snare with the iniquity of King Noah and the priests. He got loose by accepting the truth Abinadi taught, by standing up for Abinadi (which caused a break between Alma and the others), and by repenting.

Is there anything that is spiritually trapping you these days? Humility and repentance is the key to get out.

The Test of Ease

The July 2017 Ensign had a really good article from Elder Bednar called “On the Lord’s Side: Lessons from Zion’s Camp” (p27) that had a big section in it that I want to comment on.

The leaders of the Lord’s Church clearly have identified some of the collective or generational tests we can expect to encounter in our day and generation. As the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1977, President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) raised a prophetic voice of warning in a meeting of regional representatives. I now quote extensively from President Benson’s message and invite your focused attention on his timely counsel:

“Every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. Would you like to know of one of our toughest tests? Hear the warning words of Brigham Young, ‘The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth.’”

President Benson continues: “Ours then seems to be the toughest test of all, for the evils are more subtle, more clever. It all seems less menacing and it is harder to detect. While every test of righteousness represents a struggle, this particular test seems like no test at all, no struggle and so could be the most deceiving of all tests.

“Do you know what peace and prosperity can do to a people—It can put them to sleep. The Book of Mormon warned us of how Satan, in the last days, would lead us away carefully down to hell. The Lord has on the earth some potential spiritual giants whom He saved for some six thousand years to help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly, and the devil is trying to put them to sleep. The adversary knows that he probably won’t be too successful in getting them to commit many great and malignant sins of commission. So he puts them into a deep sleep, like Gulliver, while he strands them with little sins of omission. And what good is a sleepy, neutralized, lukewarm giant as a leader?

“We have too many potential spiritual giants who should be more vigorously lifting their homes, the kingdom, and the country. We have many who feel they are good men and women, but they need to be good for something—strong patriarchs, courageous missionaries, valiant family history and temple workers, dedicated patriots, devoted quorum members. In short, we must be shaken and awakened from a spiritual snooze.”⁷

Consider that affluence, prosperity, and ease can be tests in our day equal to or greater in intensity than the persecution and physical hardships endured by the Saints who volunteered to march in Zion’s Camp. As the prophet Mormon described in his magnificent summary of the pride cycle contained in Helaman 12:

“And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him.

“Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity” (Helaman 12:1–2).

I invite you specifically to note the final phrase in the last verse: “and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity.”

President Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) likewise taught about the collective test of ease that we face in our day: “We are tested, we are tried, we are going through some of the severest tests today and we don’t realize perhaps the severity of the tests we are going through. In those days there were murderings, there were mobbings, there were drivings. They were driven out into the desert, they were starving and they were unclad, and they were cold. They came here to this favored land. We are the inheritors of what they gave to us. But what are we doing with it? Today we are basking in the lap of luxury, the like of which we’ve never seen before in the history of the world. It would seem that probably this is the most severe test of any test that we’ve ever had in the history of this Church.”

So, Elder Bednar notes that affluence, prosperity, and ease can be tests in our day equal to or greater in intensity than the persecution and physical hardships endured by the Saints who volunteered to march in Zion’s camp.

Many of us might listen or read these words and like Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” we might say, “Well, if wealth is a curse, may God smite me with it! And may I never recover!”

But that just shows we don’t understand the danger. So many of us are driven and motivated to action by the needs of the moment, driven to acquire what will enable us to live, driven by the needs of those who depend on us.  But what happens when we reach a state when our needs are all met, when no one makes any demands? It sounds wonderful. But where will you find motivation if you have no need?

That is the test. The test is to create your motivation and stay anxiously engaged in a good cause day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. The test is to keep it up, even though you don’t need to. The test is to sacrifice your comfort and ease to bring about righteous purposes. The test is to push out of ease willingly into a cause fraught with frustration, inconvenience, difficulty, challenge, persecution, pain, etc.  And it is a test.  The natural man and woman loves to loll about and will protest when you think about trying something know or doing something hard that you don’t have to do.  (At least mine does.)

It is true that ease puts people to sleep. When there’s no need, you feel like you don’t have to try too hard because the penalty for failure or laziness is low. That is how prosperity saps people of vigor.

Again, Elder Bednar points out the test of affluence, prosperity, and ease can be equal to or greater in intensity than the persecution and physical hardships of Zion’s Camp. Ponder that. Equal to or greater in intensity to mental and physical fatigue, bloody blisters, inadequate food, unclean water, disappointments, dissentions, rebellions, and threatening armies. In what way are they equal? The prophet Joseph Smith called these men to leave their comfortable homes and march to save others. In our day, the prophet will similarly call us to leave our comforts and ease and suffer inconvenience, difficulty, persecution, etc. to save others. In that way, the tests are equal.

That kind of sacrifice is the same that Moses made when he put aside his status as a prince of Egypt and chose to suffer privations with the enslaved children of Israel.

How to deal with this test? How to prepare for it? I think one way to prepare for it is to choose at least one good cause to engage in along with all the things we need to do, and keep at it. Keep at it even though there is nothing urgent about it because someday you’ll need that skill.  The labor of love will prepare you for the time when all your labors become non-urgent.

Another part of this test is that when needs are taken care of, one doesn’t quite know what to pray about. What to ask for? That puzzle may cause neglect of prayers. But if one is anxiously engaged in a good cause, then one finds more to pray about, and one realizes how much one needs help to fight the inertia of the natural man or woman.

Some scriptures about pleasure

For curiosity’s sake, I thought I would look pleasure up in the Topical Guide to see what could be found there.  Here is what I found, organized a bit to put similar insights together.

·      I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure … this also is vanity: Eccl. 2:1 .

·      lovers of pleasures more than … God: 2 Tim. 3:4 .

·      And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with…pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. Luke 8:14 .

·      For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient…serving divers lusts and pleasures: Titus 3:3 .

·      she that liveth in pleasure is dead: 1 Tim. 5:6 .

·      He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: Prov. 21:17 .

·      Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?...in the day of your fast ye find pleasure: Isa. 58:3 .

·      Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton: James 5:5 .

·      And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time: 2 Pet. 2:13 .

·      ye … have pleasure in unrighteousness: D&C 56:15 .

·      Felix, willing to shew the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound: Acts 24:27 .

·      Laman and Lemuel thought Nephi meant to make himself king so he could do with his brothers according to his own will and pleasure. (1 Ne. 16:38)

I get the sense from the above scriptures that pleasure can be dangerous, that they tend to distract us from God, that and that it is possible to find pleasure in the wrong kinds of things.  In particular, I was struck by Ecclesiastes 2:1, which implies that our pleasures prove what kind of people we are.

God, on the other hand, has His own special brand of pleasure, which we can find out about.

for thy pleasure they are and were created: Rev. 4:11 .

the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his [Christ’s] hand: Isa. 53:10 .

God adopts the Saints to himself through Jesus Christ according to his will and pleasure (Eph. 1:5)

It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom: Luke 12:32 .

The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him: Ps. 147:11 .

I make known unto them [that fear and serve me to the end] the good pleasure of my will concerning all things: D&C 76:5, 7

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: Ps. 51:18 .

Who buildeth up at his own will and pleasure: D&C 63:4 .

Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant: Ps. 35:27 .

these things [scriptures] shall go forth according to the will and pleasure of God (2 Ne. 25:22)

according to mine own will and pleasure, that great things be required at the hand of their fathers. (D&C 29:48)

From the above, I get the sense that the Lord takes pleasure in every stage of the work of salvation, from the creation, to the atonement, to conversion, to placing the kingdom in the hands of his righteous servants, to revealing his will, and in all that serve him.

What does the Lord not have pleasure in?

·      When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: Eccl. 5:4 .

·      thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Ps. 5:4 .   

·      Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die: Ezek. 18:23 .

I also ran across a great example of Moses, who, according to Paul (Heb 11:24-25), chose to forsake pleasure and his high status as Pharaoh’s daughter’s son in exchange for affliction just to be with the people of God.  You have to give him credit for priorities in the right place and great strength of purpose.  How many of us are willing to sacrifice our pleasures like that?

One of the things I learn from this study is how important it is to find pleasure in the right things (things of eternity). I also learn that it is important to have some, but not to overdo the harmless temporary pleasures of life.  The Family Proclamation lists “wholesome recreational activities” as one of a list of important principles of establishing successful families. When I think of recreation, I like to read it as “re-creation,” as a way to re-create bonds of unity and re-create strength.  That gives a good way to judge the quality of my pleasure and fun.