Accuser of our Brethren

In his brief description of the war in heaven the apostle John wrote how the Satan was “cast into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”  He then recorded this, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:9-10).  This is an interesting description of what Satan did in the pre-mortal world: he accused the righteous before God.  This seems to confirm the idea that the “war” was likely more of a war of words and ideas than a physical battle like we would imagine a war on earth.  Satan, like he does here, fought the war by seeking to persuade us to reject the plan of the Father. 

               So in what ways might he have tried to accuse the righteous in the premortal world?  It’s likely that he argued against the fact that the Father’s plan was “risky” in the sense that some would be lost.  He suggested to the Father his plan saying, “Here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost” (Moses 4:1).  He seems to have been attacking the plan of the Father because it did not force all to be redeemed and saved, and I imagine that he accused the proponents of the Father’s plan of not caring about others.  Just like some accuse the Church today of hatred against certain groups of people who violate God’s laws and suggest there are negative consequences for their choices, in that premortal sphere he may have suggested that the followers of the plan of the Father did not love everyone.  Another way in which Satan may have accused others is by attacked the prominent figures of the plan, namely Christ and Michael.  He likely suggested that Christ was unable to perform the difficult mission the Father had conferred upon Him to take upon him the sins of the world.  In the same way that leaders of the Church are constantly attacked because of supposed sins or character flaws, perhaps he tried to instill in us a sense of fear about whether Christ could accomplish His saving mission.  The Lord responded to this kind of accusation in our dispensation when the Prophet Joseph was in Liberty Jail: “Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them” (D&C 121:16).  And to Lucifer’s accusations against Jehovah and perhaps some of the other “noble and great ones” in that premortal realm, the Father did indeed curse him by casting him out for good (Abraham 3:22). 

               In the verse following the one which labels Satan as the “accuser of our brethren,” we have the key to how we can withstand that kind of persecution and pressure: “For they have overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (JST Revelation 12:11).  We escaped then by our testimony of the Savior and His atonement, and that’s how we can come away unscathed from the accusations against the Church and its leaders and the gospel path.  We don’t return “railing for railing” but rather seek to be “humble and penitent before God,” trusting as we did then in Christ’s power to save us (3 Nephi 6:13).