Doctrine and Covenants 10

(September 19, 2013)
It seems clear that the very idea of the ends justifying the means is not one that is acceptable to the Lord.  Satan, on the other hand, is one who will attempt to convince us that it is not a sin to lie in order to catch a man in a lie.  Satan uses this technique to escalate sin – if he can get one to sin, and another to sin in response, then drive the first to sin again in response, he can lead both parties down to Hell.

But, of course, the important thing with the scriptures is to not look at what Satan is doing to other people and to instead look at what sin is doing to us.  I think that contention is a big part of Satan's plan in this respect (the Lord explicitly mentions it by name in this Section).  If he can get one person to contend with another person, it then becomes easier to get the first person to contend back.  After all, it is "justified" because of what they were going through.

Although responding to contention with contention is one of the easiest patterns to get into, I am becoming more and more convinced that it is a deadly way to live our lives.  Before long, we forget why conflict even began (and, perhaps, we were the ones who started it long ago).  All we know is that we must keep contending or else our adversary will have "gotten away with it."  The irony of this, unfortunately, is that it is this very mindset that allows our Adversary to get away with it.