Adversary

Topics without scriptures: Advent.

According to dictinoary.com, an adversary is:

a person, group, or force that opposes or attacks; opponent;enemy; foe.

In the case of the conflict between good and evil, Satan is the ultimate adversary. The story of where he came from begins before the creation of the world. We were all there as spirit children of God, but forever stuck as being nothing more. Then God presented a plan where we could come to Earth, get bodies and participate in life thereby learning good and evil and progressing towards our eternal potential. However, Satan rejected God's plan and suggested a new on instead, where we would come to Earth and we would get bodies, but that we would not have the ability to choose and would all be forced to be good people. This way everyone would be saved because no one would ever be given the opportunity to sin. The catch was that all the glory and honor had to go to him instead of to God. Christ then stepped up and offered that he would provide the ultimate sacrifice in the atonement so none would be lost as well if they chose to follow God, having all the glory and honor go to the Father. God chose Christ and Satan and 1/3 of the hosts of heaven were cast out because they couldn't accept this plan and went as far as rebelling against God.

When we talk about The Adversary, we are talking about a being that is so against God's plan that he will destroy us if he could. Or as Peter said in 1 Peter 5:8 he is:

8... as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Or as Nephi put it in 2 Nephi 2:18:

18 And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind...

Satan is miserable. He will never get a body, never have a family, never have a spouse or children, never know peace, never know love. He has no special feelings towards anyone, he is no one's ally. If you are on this Earth it is because you did not chose to join his cause, and that is all he cares about. He knows that he can no win the war and that God will permanently cast him out in the end, but this does not keep him from trying to destroy as many of us as he can before the end. We are not people, we are numbers. When God is fighting for us, he wants to live with us each individually for eternity and sees a future with our faces in it. All that Satan sees is a figurative spiritual coffin, closed and ready for burial. Just like every other coffin without a face or individuality. Just the way he always wanted us.

How do we stay safe? The answer is in 1 Nephi 15:24:

24 And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.