Years ago, while serving as an anxious and inexperienced elders quorum president, I had a dream. In the dream, I was a low-ranking officer in a renaissance-era army. Battle was imminent, and my troop was undisciplined—no undisciplined is an understatement. I could not so much as command their attention. I would have had greater success keeping nursery children in their seats than I was having organizing my men into formation. As soon as I situated one in his position, I noticed that another had wandered off. I was frustrated and failing.
I observed the enemy forces arrayed with precision on the opposing side of the battlefield. Fear gripped me, and I frantically forced that feeling upon my friends. “Look! Look at the enemy. Look at what we’re up against.”
I kept trying, but to no avail. I looked around in despair as not only my platoon but entire divisions were in disarray. Though we were not prepared, our King sallied forth to meet the opposition ahead of battle. In a last effort to motivate my troop, I drew their attention to our advancing leader. “Ready or not, the battle’s beginning.”
But then I witnessed our King dismiss the enemy with naught but a wave of his hand. The enemy respected the gesture and retreated. The battle was won before it commenced. I understood then that it is not my responsibility to defeat the enemy. Fears of failure are unfounded. Our King commands and assures, “Do good; let earth and hell combine against you...they cannot prevail” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:34).
As evidence, he offers, “Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:37). The very marks that the adversary intended to inflict as the definition of defeat are now lorded as the signs of supremacy.
I wonder, during the short span of darkness that Jesus lay lifeless, did Satan, like the pharisees, cling to the false hope that he’d won? In his indomitable pride, could he have yet believed that he’d caused the Messiah to falter? Did the resurrection take Lucifer by surprise?
It may have. Christ explained, “I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:21). I interpret the word comprehend in two ways: to encompass and to understand. The darkness is neither able to encircle and conquer the light nor capable of fully understanding it. While Christ, the light, through the atonement, probed and penetrated even the deepest darkness so that he might be both “above all and through all,” the reverse cannot be said of Satan (Ephesians 4:6). There are aspects of the light that remain incomprehensible to the darkness.
For instance, refer to the principles of power set forth in the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants, wherein it is explained that power cannot be maintained by compulsory means, “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41). Only a dominion founded upon such principles can be an everlasting dominion. Any other will eventually end. But because Lucifer does not have a selfless bone in his could-have-been body, for him, such an approach to power does not compute. Satan’s only path to power is self-serving deception, manipulation, unpredictability, and fear, leaving him in a precarious position, vulnerable to anyone willing to call him on it.
I know an intelligent individual who thrives off such an approach to power. It is intoxicating to him and bewildering to those targeted, but he is not unassailable. In a distressing, but pivotal public moment, someone called him on it. Revealing the man behind the curtain curtailed his control, at least in that community.
Christ called Satan’s play for power. In the premortal world, when Jehovah and Lucifer stood side-by-side before all as contending champions for the title of Christ, I imagine Lucifer threatening under his breath, “So, you want to start a war? Is that what you want? ‘Cause we can start a war.”
Lucifer expected submission from the Prince of Peace, that any division, any loss, would be unconscionable and indefensible. Up until that point, not one had been lost. Lucifer pandered to and pushed those premortal principles until he stood at a precipice. He thought he’d won, that he’d commandeered the title of Christ. But the true Christ called. Perhaps, he called on his Father’s command, “Do good...they cannot prevail.” Whatever the case, war was waged. Rather than relent, Lucifer’s pride proscribed any path off his precipice. So he fell. He doubled down on deception, determined to demonstrate the folly of his foes.
In our home, we have several young children, so we’ve watched Disney films not a few. In the movie Sleeping Beauty, Prince Phillip’s path is literally hedged up by his adversary Maleficent. Undeterred, Phillip presses forward until Maleficent herself stands in his way and utters the unforgettable words, “Now you shall deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of hell!” Maleficent transforms into the dragon and engages the Prince. Ultimately, the Prince of Peace, wielding the sword of truth, pierces the malevolent and magnificent dragon (Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 51:9). In the aftermath of battle, only Maleficent’s robe remains pierced through with a sword in the pit below.
Of this post-climatic scene, Isaiah writes of the dragon, “thou art cast out of thy grave...as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword...down to the stones of the pit” (Isaiah 14:19). “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” (Isaiah 14:12-16).
Brothers and sisters, I testify to you that fears are unfounded, that Christ has prevailed and blazed the trail. If we follow, we cannot fail. Neal A. Maxwell once invited, “My friends, there are footprints to follow where we must go—made not by a leader who said, safely from the sidelines, ‘Go thither,’ but by a leader who said, ‘Come, follow me’” (Neal A. Maxwell - General Conference October 1974).
Go with your Savior. “Do good.” Now that’s going to mean something different to each of you, but if you’ve been listening, you’ve been prompted to do something, and that something you might fear. Your Savior beckons assuringly, “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36). I pray that we may follow his counsel. Do good.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.