The very first commandment God gave to Adam and Eve was "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Genesis 1:28). All Jewish and Christian faiths understand this to mean that Adam and Eve were expected to bare and have children, and all throughout the Old Testament, the idea of bringing forth children was seen as a blessing while those who could not conceive and bare children were considered cursed of God.

It is clear that God intended for the earth to be populated with beings who were made in His image and the scriptures give us several reasons why God gave this commandment. One is that He wanted to have beings who would worship and give praise to Him (Exodus 3:4; Psalms 47:6). Another is that God wanted man to become worthy to live with Him in heaven for all eternity. That's why God gave His only begotten Son, that whosever should believeth in Him would have eternal life (John 3:16).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adds two more reasons. One is that we came here to earth from heaven to gain a physical body so we could become more like our heavenly Father who possesses a resurrected and glorified physical body, and the second is so we could not only learn good from evil but learn, through our own experience, to choose good over evil thereby becoming even more like our Father in heaven. To accomplish all of these purposes we, the spirit children of God, come to earth through the divinely appointed means of child birth whereby we gain a physical body and begin the journey of learning good from evil.

To assist us in this spiritual growth God has provided us with a Savior who would redeem us from our sins as we struggle to overcome them. Although this was the plan of our Father in heaven, there was another plan put forth by Lucifer. His proposal was similar in that it would allow us to gain a physical body and learn good from evil but it differed in that we would not be allowed to experience evil.

Under this plan, it was said that we could learn about evil intellectually without having to actually participate in it. In this way there would be no need for a savior to sacrifice his life because no one would have the opportunity to sin. Since it would be Lucifer who would assure our eternal salvation, we would still be required to worship our savior except our praise would be to Lucifer.

As we compare these two plans we see that what Lucifer wanted to do was nearly identical to our Father's with the exception that we would not learn good from evil through personal experience nor would we gain the wisdom and skill necessary to overcome evil.

Yet, without this knowledge, we could not become like God because we would not be able to gain the strength of character to overcome evil. Without this knowledge and spiritual strength it would be impossible for us to inherit eternal life because eternal life means inheriting all the power and privileges God posses. This would be like a person who had the mind of a sixteen year old adolescent being given the responsibility that is required of a forty year old adult. Such a person would have neither the maturity nor the wisdom born of experience to handle such powers.

When Lucifer's plan was rejected and he rebelled against God, he was cast out of heaven but that has not prevented him from carrying out his desired plan. He has come here to earth to implement what he could not do in heaven. However, this time his motive is not for our good but to prevent God from carrying out His plan for our exaltation.

There are several ways Satan seeks to implement his plan. One is to provide us with more experiences of evil than we bargained for and to entice us to choose evil over good, with the intent of helping us to become the exact opposite of what God desires for us. While nearly all Christians understand this tactic, there is another way Satan intends to implement his plan that is often not recognized.

Under Satan's plan, we would gain a physical body but we would not have the opportunity to experience and thereby learn about evil. A simple way for this to happen is to remove people from the earth before they have had the chance to fully participate in the learning process that earth life was designed to give us and the easiest way to prevent people from going through this learning process is through premature death. Thus, a major part of Satan's efforts to thwart God's plan is to shorten our time here on earth or to prevent life from even occurring in the first place.

There are a number of ways to shorten life but the easiest is through war. Throughout much of earth's history there has been continual bloodshed as one group of people have raided, conquered, and destroyed other groups of people through the use of warfare, and as man's knowledge has increased, so has his ability and skill to inflict more death on greater numbers of people.

In every war it is children who are the greatest victims of slaughter. These are spirits who have recently entered mortality and have thereby gained a physical body but whose life in mortality has been shortened before they had the full opportunity to learn how to choose good over evil. But, even after people have been conquered, most governments are not as concerned with the welfare of its subjects as they are about preserving their own power and gaining wealth. As a result of this attitude, while some live a life of plenty, most people who are ruled with dictatorial power live in poverty where hunger and disease shorten life, especially those of the young.

However, war isn't the only means of ending life. Throughout much of Israel's ancient history they have engaged in the worship of Baal which required as part of its ritual the offering of human sacrifices, particularly that of young children. But this was not a practice confined just to the area around Israel Human sacrifice was also practice in Central America by the Mayans and as late as the 1500's by the Aztecs. In ancient Egypt when a Pharaoh died often his servants were killed and place either in or near his tomb, not so much for religious reasons but so they would be available to continue serving their master during his stay in the afterlife. In almost every society at one time or another, in one way or another, the taking of human life as a religious or cultural ritual has been practiced.

But there were also other reasons for killing children. While the Israelites lived in Egypt as slaves The Pharaoh became grieved when he saw how many children they were having. In an attempt to control the population size "the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives and said, When ye do the office of a midwife and see them upon the stools if it be a son then ye shall kill him but if it be a daughter then shall she live" (Exodus 1:15,16). When the midwives failed to keep this royal decree "the Pharaoh charged all his people saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river and every daughter ye shall save alive" (Exodus 1:22).

At the time when Herod was king of Judea, after learning that a child had been born who would someday become King of the Jews, he "was exceedingly wroth and sent forth [his soldiers] and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts therefore" (Matthew 2 16). During the Middle Ages children who were born with Downs Syndrome were put to death. In modern times the term "After Term Abortion" has been used in place of the word "infanticide" to justify the killing of unwanted newborn babies. The justification for this practice is based, by some, on the premise that such a young child is not really a "person" because they are not yet capable of being aware of even their basic rights of existence. This argument then concludes that since such a young child doesn't know they have any rights then there is no loss if they are deprived of those rights.

But Satan does not stop at the taking the life of breathing human being but goes one step further by seeking to prevent the birth of children in the first place by stopping or aborting the process of birth. The act of abortion has been practiced for thousands of years. Sometime this event happens for natural reasons and is beyond the control of humans to prevent it but most of the time abortion is a deliberate act performed either by the mother herself or by some other person at the request of the mother. In just the United States alone the average number of abortions that have been performed is over one and a quarter million per year. Worldwide, the number averages around four million abortions per year.

If we believe that life begins at conception and that a fetus is not just a piece of viable tissue but a living human being then we must conclude that abortion is no different than deliberately taking the life of a newborn child or the life of a two year old or of a five year old. Although the human body is made up of biological material, what gives it life is the spirit inside of it but if the body is not able to function then the spirit can no longer use it. When that happens the body is placed in the grave and the spirit of that body goes to the spirit world where it waits for the resurrection before regaining its body. If a fetus is a living body then it has a spirit. When that fetus is aborted then the spirit of that body goes to the spirit world without ever having had the opportunity to learn good from evil nor has it ever had the experience of learning to choose good over evil.

Because this has always been Satan's plan from the beginning, it becomes obvious that encouraging abortion has to be one of Satan's main objectives but it is by no means the only method he employs as he seeks to thwart God's plan.

It hasn't been that long ago when it was quite common to see families of ten, twelve, or even fifteen children. Today, the "ideal" family is two children, preferably one boy and one girl. Today, the idea that married couples should "multiply and replenish the earth" is considered to be out-dated, old fashion, economically unfeasible and detrimental to society. Today's prophets of wisdom tell us that the world is being over crowded which is limiting the amount of food available for an ever increasing population. It is said that this then is depleting our natural resources and is contributing to the polluting of our air and the destruction of the earth's environment.

At the end of 2010 the population of China was 1.3 billion. The population of India was 1.2 billion. The population of the entire world at the end of 2010 was almost seven billion people. Twenty years earlier, in 1990, the world's population was a little over five billion. For this reason, population control has become a big topic of discussion among politicians and academics. China instituted a one-child policy to curb the growth of its population. According to Human Rights groups, to enforce this policy the government of China resorts to "abortion, forced sterilization, and infanticide."

But China isn't the only country that limits the size of families. There are numerous other countries that have passed laws intended to reduce the number of children a couple has. For example, in Iran a couple must take a mandatory course in the use of contraceptives before they are allowed to obtain a marriage license. In India people with two or more children are excluded from holding public office. In the United States, in 1970 Congress passed the Public Health Service Act that provides contraceptives to the poor. To administer these services this law establishes the Office of Population Affairs.

However, instead of referring to this process as "population control" it is now being called "Family Planning" but its purpose is the same. The goal is to limit the size of families by providing education and supplies to prevent pregnancies as well as encouraging people to have abortions. Under the presidency of Barack Obama the government is not only providing funds for abortions but wants to have insurance companies provide contraceptive devises to people for free.

Such programs actually help Satan accomplish two of his objectives. One is to prevent the birth of children. While this does not stop spirits from gaining a body it does slow down the process and is intended to sabotage God's purpose for His children. In this way Satan acts as an impediment to God's plan. The second thing this accomplishes is to encourage immoral sexual behavior. Through the use of contraceptives, it makes it easier for people to engage in promiscuity without the fear of becoming pregnant and it gives the impression that a person can sin without experiencing any negative consequences.

Another way Satan has accomplished this same goal is by promoting and championing a homosexual lifestyle, which he has been doing for thousands of years. And every time it has occurred God has condemn it. This is the reason why He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, why He again forbade it in the law of Moses (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13), and why the Christian were told it was an abomination before God (Romans 1:25-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-11).

There are two reasons why homosexuality is sin in God's eye. The first is that it perverts God's values. The purpose of sexual intimacy in marriage is for more than just having children. It is a unique expression of love between a husband and wife that is meant to convey a special sense of caring, and commitment to one another and God has specifically designed and reserved this act of love to be between a man and a woman who are married to each other. On the other hand, Satan's strategy is to sabotage God's values by corrupting them, and one way he does this is by imitating God's values in a perverted form. Homosexuality is not only a corruption of the institution of marriage by providing a false imitation of what God has divinely appointed but it promotes sexual promiscuity which is a counterfeit version of the love God has reserved for husbands and wives.

Yet the plan of God also requires husbands and wives to have children which can only occur through sexual intimacy. Sex between two men or two women cannot fulfill God's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth. As such homosexuality is a tool Satan uses in his unrelenting efforts to obstruct God's divine purpose for mankind. By creating a false union between people of the same gender Satan is able to prevent the creation of mortal bodies for those spirits waiting their time to experience what earth life has to offer. For these reasons Satan always attacks the idea of marriage and family as he seeks to undermine its influence in society and degrade its effectiveness in preserving righteous customs.

There is not much difference between preventing life from forming and the taking of life at any stage of development. Either way life is being denied. God is all about giving life, especially eternal life, therefore anything that prohibits or even inhibits the giving of life is not from God. Because of his rebellion against God Satan has been denied the right to experience mortality, to have a physical body, and the opportunity to receive eternal life. For that reason alone he stands against everything God stands for. This is why it is easy to detect the hand of Satan because it shows itself whenever we see a culture of death.

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