Conflict Prior to Eden's Garden

Not all of the children of heaven celebrated God's Plan. Some actively warred against it, as covered in this article. The "Great Pre-Mortal Debate" discusses how our lives, all of humanity, extend beyond eternity because we lived with God as spirits learning to become like Him--maturing to a point where He could send us to progress more on Earth.

On Earth, God wants us to find the truth and live according to its principles--the truths of science and religion. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the Truth that He wants us to live, but there exist many systems of belief that we must filter through. We are expected to experience pain, hurt, hunger, bitterness, happiness, joy, and all other pleasantries and challenges we as spirits could only experience on earth in mortal bodies. This experience on Earth helps us to understand what God understands. The idea is to go through these things and still choose to be like Heavenly Father.

After Earth life, or death, we are separated according to the choices and promises we made during life. Our bodies go to the grave and our spirits go to the Spirit World. Some go to Heaven or Paradise, and others go to Hell or Spirit Prison. Those who followed Christ will go to Paradise until the resurrection.

The people who did not know of Christ or were deceived by the teachings of the world will be introduced to the gospel in the spirit world and "for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." 1 Peter 4:6 All people will have a fair opportunity to hear and accept the gospel of Christ.

Resurrection will come to every person born on Earth whether we are good or evil. It is a free gift to all by the grace of Jesus Christ and His resurrection.

Following the resurrection will be a judgment for our eternal mansions. "In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2) instructed Jesus to His disciples.

Those of us who inherit jointly with Christ will dwell with the Father in Celestial mansions. From there the mansions decrease in glory to terrestrial and telestial mansions. For the remainder of humanity, outer darkness is the destination where there are no mansions and the devil and his angels dwell.

In God's plan, all people will receive a just reward, and eternity is more than harps, clouds, and singing.

After the creation of Earth, Lucifer rebelled against God the Father and Jesus Christ. Michael, fought against Lucifer, the dragon as he became known, and his angels. Unaware to Lucifer, he fit himself perfectly into the plan by becoming the poster child for rebellion.

Evil is as eternal as God and exists with or without a devil to tempt people.

With a choice comes the ability to choose to be evil. Our brother chose to follow pride and selfishness. His choice made him the leader of such behavior and an enemy to all that is good. God represents all that is good. Lucifer became the enemy of his Father.

Following the council in heaven where God presented the plan to all of future humanity, Lucifer (or Satan in his fallen name) used his influence, fear, and deceit to convince one-third of us to follow him. One-third of the host of heaven sided with satan out of fear of not returning to Father and the paradise in which we lived before birth. Father sent Michael, the chief general of the armies of Jesus Christ to settle the dispute with Lucifer.

Of course, facing the champion of the plan that God instituted, Michael, did not curb the desire for satan to win the spirits of heaven to his doomed cause. With the support he garnered from those of us who followed his thinking, Lucifer surely began to believe his illegitimate plan could work--that he could ascend the throne of God and rule over the sons of heaven.

Risk was involved in Jehovah's Plan. Some of us would not return to Heavenly Father to live in the glory of heaven as we did then. Not thinking it was fair to risk the lost associates of any of us, Lucifer fought for a plan where all of the souls of men could return to heaven. However, NONE of us would have become like God under Satan's misguided plan. Plus, Lucifer only wanted to have a different plan where he could be the Son of God and receive God's glory without being willing to descend below all things as Jesus Christ agreed to do.

Two-thirds of the spirits in heaven agreed that to become like Father was worth the risk of forgetting so that our choices would be based on our true desires for righteousness and not based on the memory of a home that we had left. Every person ever born and will be born agreed to follow Jesus Christ and accept the plan.

We come from the group that kept its first estate.

The great lie that Satan told his followers is that if they won, their plan would be supreme. Satan had no sanction from Father for his plan. There never existed an alternative to The Plan of Salvation, and there was no contest to prove which one was best. Satan had deceived himself and one-third of our brothers and sisters with enough pride and selfishness in him to refuse to yield to Michael.

With the authority of Jesus Christ and by the command of Heavenly Father, we thrust them out of heaven and cast them down to the Earth that was created for our mortality. A civil war in heaven, between brothers and sisters using the power of Christ to expose the deception of Satan started that has yet to cease.

It is important for us to remember that the war which commenced in heaven will not end until the great battle of Gog and Magog spoken of in Revelations 20:7-15, and the devil and his angels are cast into outer darkness.

For official teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you may go to churchofjesuschrist.org or comeuntochrist.org.

President Russel M Nelson is called by God as His representative on the earth and authorizes him to speak on behalf of the church and to ordain others to do so. All references to "the Church" are to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.