The Accuser of Our Brethren

In a discussion in Church yesterday about the contention we face in our world today, one brother suggested that the way of the Adversary is to accuse others. He inspires people of today to accuse one another, and the accusations are rampant as opposing parties accuse one another of everything possible in their online battles. And indeed the scriptures teach us that this is what the devil has done from the beginning. John recorded this of the premortal realm: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 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). He was called “the accuser of our brethren” and apparently in our 1^st estate “accused them before our God day and night.” He spent his time trying to tear down others and cast guilt upon the faithful when there was none.

                This leads to an obvious question: what did Satan accuse others of in the premortal world?  As he fought against the plan of God that centered on agency and the Savior’s atonement for the sins of the world, perhaps he accused the proponents of this plan of taking too much risk or of seeking glory for themselves at the expense of the salvation of others. He might have even accused the Savior of not truly being capable of performing this ultimate mission, and those accusations continued once He came to mortality. Perhaps we get a sense of the kinds of accusations he made then in the words of the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders who accused Jesus in mortality. They were inspired no doubt by the great Accuser. For example, they loved to try to accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath Day. “And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him” (Matt. 12:10). Mark recorded of the same incident, “And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him” (Mark 3:2). When the Savior reproached the hypocrites around Him, “The scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him” (Luke 11:53-54). When they brought Him the woman take in adultery and asked Him what should be done, John recorded, “This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him” (John 8:6). It seems that everything they did was to try to get Him to slip up somehow or commit some mistake they could accuse Him of. And of course especially at the end of His life, “the chief priests accused him of many things” before Pilate which ultimately led to His death (Mark 15:3). Luke recorded their words, “And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King” (Luke 23:2). Over and over again they sought to accuse Him of wrongdoing when there was none, and this is surely representative of how the Adversary accused Jehovah and Michael and others in the war in heaven.

                Understanding this should, I believe, inspire us to not be accusers of our brethren today even when we face those who oppose or condemn us. The Savior spent His life not accusing others but lifting them up and seeking to bring them out of suffering and sin. Instead of condemning He said, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). Instead of casting out the sinners He called them to repentance. John declared, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). And so we should we seek to save and help others, and as Elder Renlund suggested recently, learn to be “stonecatchers” instead of stone throwers. He said, “Brothers and sisters, not throwing stones is the first step in treating others with compassion. The second step is to try to catch stones thrown by others.” We must learn to not follow the way of the evil one who wants us to get caught up in the contention of accusing our adversaries; instead we must seek to bring others to the Son of God who will heal all those who will repent and receive His grace. We can, as did the faithful in the premortal existence, “[overcome Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).