The Plan and the Story

This lesson has been giving me a bit more trouble than previous lessons have. One of the reasons I had an easier time preparing previous lessons was because there was already a framework to each of those lessons. I was teaching church history as well as some doctrine, so there was almost always a story to tell, and then I could transition to teaching a few of the lessons we can learn from those stories. To me, this lesson seemed to be more doctrine than story, so I was having a hard time organizing the lesson.

That was until this morning, I was talking to my brother about it, and I realised that there was a story I could build my lesson around. The Council in Heaven and the subsequent war in heaven, expulsion of the adversary, and our current need to stay on guard against his influence can all be strung together into a fairly exciting story.

I'll begin with a reminder of what our previous lesson was: Our Heavenly Father's Plan. Then I'll tell the children that God asked for a volunteer to help Him accomplish the plan, and I'll ask them who volunteered. There are two correct answers to this question. Once both correct answers are revealed, I'll explain that Jesus volunteered first, and that Lucifer (or Satan or whatever we decide to call him during this lesson) also volunteered to take part in this plan, except that he had wanted to make some changes to it.

To explain those changes, I'll have one of the children read Moses 4: 1 & 3

And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down.

 I'll have to do some set up first though. Moses commanding Satan in the name of Jesus will take a little bit of explanation. So as the children are looking for Moses 4, I'll tell them that that Moses had just seen a vision, and then Satan came to tempt him, but Moses, in the name of Jesus Christ, commanded Satan to depart. Then God appeared to Moses again and told him some more things, including those passages above.

Once that scripture has been read, I'll explain the importance of agency in our Heavenly Father's plan, and I'll tell the children that God respected our agency so much that He let us choose whether we wanted to follow Him or Satan. That's when we'll get into the War part and read Revelations 12: 7 & 9.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

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.

I'll explain that Michael is another name for Adam, if anybody wonders who this Michael guy is, and then I'll emphasize that Satan and his followers were "cast out into the earth," and ended up here, where they remain, attempting to tempt us and lead us away from God. That's when I'll bring in 2 Nephi 2:27 and talk about the importance of using our agency to choose good.

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

I'll conclude with my testimony of the importance of agency and of using it wisely, of staying vigilant in this ongoing war for souls, and of choosing the right. I might not spend much time on the Armor of God, but I might mention that CTR is often placed inside a shield, which reminds us of "the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked," teaching us that our best defence against Satan's influence is to have faith and choose the right.

Framing the discussion of agency around this story allows me opportunities to illustrate agency in action, like when Jesus and Satan chose to volunteer, when we chose whom to follow, and when Moses resisted Satan's temptations. I like having stories like these that I can use as examples and from which I can draw doctrinal lessons. I suppose I could teach the doctrine on its own without a story to serve as a framework, but it's nice to have a story, especially when it's as grand and epic as this one.