Today's Favorite Verse: Moses 1:19

Today's Favorite Verse: Moses 1:19

"And now, when Moses had said these words, Satan cried with a loud voice, and ranted upon the earth, and commanded, saying: I am the Only Begotten, worship me."

I'm in the Pearl of Great Price now and the book of Moses is "An extract from the book of Genesis of Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible". In this chapter it tells how God reveals himself to Moses and is transfigured. After that Satan appears to him and Moses is able to tell the glory of God is not upon him. He commands Satan by the name of the Only Begotten to depart. Once Satan leaves Moses again beholds the glory of the Lord God.

As I reflected on this chapter something kept playing in my mind. It is something I have heard several times from different people, which I feel is misguided. For their counsel is to not focus on Satan and don't give him much attention. To the exclusion of thinking about what is actually written in the scriptures about him. I think we need to give Satan as much attention as the scriptures tell us of him. There is a reason the scriptures warn of him and exposes his tactics. To not understand them opens us up to deception. Of course you don't expand into occult practices to know the fine details, but it is good to be aware of tactics being used. This helps us to identify them when we see them.

In this scripture we see Satan uses the tactic of saying he is the Only Begotten. He is lying and deceiving and wants to show himself as if God. We need to be aware of this and then look at anything we may be involved in or listening to, that may be part of that deception. What is trying to rob God's glory and set himself up as a light. There is much out there. I see this tactic being used to deceive many good people. Great care must be given to understand the difference between the glory of God and the deception of Satan, otherwise why would this chapter even exist? Why is the story of Adam and Eve and Satan's part in it so integral for us to understand. If we don't think about the role he played how would we ever stop him from playing that role on us?

Another really important thing in this verse is Satan cries in a loud voice. Just think about all the characteristics of a person speaking in a loud voice. There is pride, arrogance, someone wanting to drown out other voices. Someone that wants attention drawn on himself. I could go on and on. Now consider how the Spirit speaks. It is in a still, small voice and speaks peace. What a contrast. How careful we must be in the voices we give attention to. If we give attention to the world, it will drown out the still small voice of the Spirit. We may never have an experience like Moses, but we certainly will experience hearing that voice, and it's vital to know who it belongs to.

Day 2144