Episode 37: D&C 10 - 11

Shiloh and Ben open up a discussion to consider God’s perennial nature and work. This discussion starts in an unlikely place by talking about the archetype of Satan. Section 10 contains more references to “Satan” than almost any other, and there is a lot to learn about ourselves through this archetypal recognition. Whereas Christ is our anointed advocate with the Father, Satan is “The Accuser” that interacts with and justifies the perceived existence of the “false self.” In these verses we see a beautiful revelation of God helping us identify and deal with the accusing voice within each of us that we feed, nurture, and cherish. It is this accusing voice that most commonly motivates our feeling to justify our opinions, put others in their place, and tells us that our worthiness/unworthiness has any conditional power over God’s love, compassion, and grace. Consider the point of view of Joseph Smith’s persecutors and those who had taken the 116-page manuscript. Surely they believed and felt their actions were motivated from a sense of justice in ridding the world of a charlatan, a fraud, a cheater, and a liar, and certainly they saw no problems in entrapping Joseph in his seeming dishonesty. Today, our society and culture completely accepts the same use and tactic of Joseph’s old persecutors in justifying lying-to-a-liar in our own “justice system” to catch supposed cheats, fraudsters, and criminals in the act. The Accuser teaches us to “Deceive and lie in wait to catch, that ye may destroy [evil from among you],” and that “it is no sin to lie that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him” (D&C 10:25). But our advocate with the Father has a different message. He tells us that the Accuser–the very founding and archetypal voice of civilization itself– cannot destroy or thwart His work (D&C 10:43), that He comes with good news “that there may not be so much contention” (D&C 10:63), that He is sent to gather in to protect (D&C 10:65), and that anyone who is willing to come and see Him differently than all the world has argued Him to be is already His church (D&C 10:67).