Protection from the Enemy of Our Souls

Two stories I have heard recently have caused me to ponder the question: how do we keep the adversary from gaining power over us? What can we do to minimize the impact of the enemy of our soul from day to day? As I thought about scriptures that might help answer that question, looking for some unique instruction that might point out the key protection from the “hail and mighty storm” of the devil, I realized that the best protection is simply and nothing new: daily seeking the Lord through the study of the scriptures and prayer. Day in and day out, if we can consistently do those two things no matter what else happens, then surely the adversary can get no great hold on our hearts. Mormon described Captain Moroni in these words, “Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.” He was a man who indeed prayed, “whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God” (Alma 48:12, 17). He also was a man who loved the scriptures deeply, using their words and stories to inspire his people. When he stood before Zerahemnah, he made this powerful statement about how the Nephites had gained power over the Lamanites: “By our faith, by our religion, and by our rites of worship, and by our church, and by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness” (Alma 44:5). He suggested that they owed all their happiness to the scriptures, and surely his devotion to the scriptures was an important part of why Mormon could say that the devil could have no power over him.

               Other scriptures confirm that indeed prayer and the study of the scriptures is key to overcoming the adversary and minimizing his influence in our lives. Nephi taught that the devil seeks to stop us from praying: “The evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray” (2 Nephi 32:8). That is likely because the devil knows how great protection prayer will give us. The Lord said in our dispensation in no uncertain terms: “Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work” (Doctrine and Covenants 10:5). Moses showed us an example of this as he relied on prayer when he was face to face with the devil, declaring firmly, “I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of him” (Moses 1:18). Because he did not cease to all up on God in prayer, he was eventually able to rid himself of Satan. Mormon said this about the power of the scriptures in overcoming the adversary: “Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven” (Helaman 3:29-30). If we truly lay hold upon the word of God, it will protect us from the cunning and the snares of the adversary and lead us safely to our heavenly home. While we may think we need “some great thing” to find protection from the evil that seeks to influence us every day, it may be the simple acts of prayer and scripture study that do the most to protect us from the enemy of all righteousness (2 Kings 5:13).