Get Thee Hence Satan

When the devil came tempting Moses, the prophet resisted him and said, “Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not; for God said unto me: Thou art after the similitude of mine Only Begotten” (Moses 1:16). It may be that the Savior was quoting Moses when He responded to the temptations from the devil he received: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10). The Savior also relied on the words of Moses, or at least the words of the book of Deuteronomy, in His responses to all three temptations. With each He said, “It is written,” and he quoted the words of Moses in the law as a protection from the adversary. Later on in His ministry the Savior may have also been quoting Moses when He rejected the idea of Peter. After Jesus had explained that He would “go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day,” Peter replied, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” Peter of course said this with love and concern for His Master, but Jesus responded, “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:23). The Savior immediately rejected the temptation to not fulfil the mission He had and imputed Peter’s idea to not suffer and die to Satan. And His response reminds us of how Moses likewise commanded the adversary to depart when temptation came.

                The Savior’s example in responding to temptation using the words of Moses teaches us that the scriptures are an important part of overcoming temptations of the adversary. Nephi highlighted this principle when he spoke to his brothers about the words of his father. Explaining what the iron rod represented, Nephi “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” (1 Nephi 15:24). One of my favorite lines from the book of Psalms is this one: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). The word of God lights the way for our path, showing us where to go and where not to go. That light can help us see clearly when the mists of darkness come which are “the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost” (1 Nephi 12:17). Temptations blind our eyes so that we cannot see clearly; the word of God lights our path so that we can see clearly and avoid temptation. It is not known for sure who wrote Psalm 119, but many contend that it was indeed David. I listened last week to the tragic story of David and Bathsheba, and I’m led to wonder how different things would have been for him if he had just held fast to the word that had so often been a lamp to his feet. If he had just looked to that light of the scriptures when temptation came, his life would not have fallen apart like it did. The scriptures would have helped him see clearly to choose correctly like he had in other times, but instead he did not look to them or to the law written on them. I love this promise from Mormon about the power of the scriptures to protect us from temptation: “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).