3 Lies About The Plan of Salvation Satan Wants You to Believe

From the premortal councils of heaven, Satan has attacked the Plan of Salvation. When he could not replace and overthrow it, he waged war over it. When he lost that war in heaven, he was cast down. The war in heaven is still raging on earth today. Satan is still attacking the Plan of Salvation. With members of the Church, he can’t get them to reject it outright, so instead he has crafted counterfeits of the truths of the plan, lies that deceive many. I want to highlight three lies he loves and wants us to believe.

1st. God is going to exalt most of His children.

One of the most repeated teachings by the prophets is that a parent is not a failure if their kids use their agency to choose wrong. That if we do our best and they use their agency to choose the wrong, it is not our fault. Robert D. Hales taught this clearly in Apr. 2004 when he said, “Sometimes as parents we feel we have failed when our children make mistakes or stray. Parents are never failures when they do their best to love, teach, pray, and care for their children.”

But when it comes to God, Satan wants us to believe the exact opposite. He wants us to believe that God is going to somehow exalt most of us in the Celestial Kingdom. I have had countless people, including local leaders, express this belief. They always follow up this claim that most people are going to be Exalted with a statement like, “God is not a failure.” Some use this logic to justify movement between kingdoms of glory. “After all, God is not a failure!”

This lie is very dangerous for many reasons: First, this is Satan’s plan and idea from the beginning. His plan was the one that guaranteed everyone would be exalted. Whereas God declared, “For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it.” Second, if God not being a failure requires him to exalt us, then the same logic requires that you as a parent are a failure if your kids don’t choose the right. The exact opposite of what the prophets have taught. Third, the idea that God loves us and has so much mercy that it will swallow up the consequences of wilfully using our agency to disobey, is another way of saying ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, and eventually God will exalt us’.

2nd. The Millennium is for second chances.

The prophets have repeatedly promised people that in God’s Plan of Salvation there will be a time called the Millennium where all injustices will be made right. Anyone denied opportunities, through no fault of their own, will receive them in the millennium. Anyone who did not have a chance to accept the ordinances of the gospel will receive them. Those who did not have the chance to get married will have it. Those who did not have the chance to have kids will have them. And those who did not have the chance to raise their kids due to death will raise them. There are dozens of quotes similar to what James E. Faust declared in the Apr. 1997 Conference, “All are equal before their Creator. Those who are single through no fault of their own, if worthy, will be given the blessings, if they wish, of an eternal family relationship.”

But Satan has wrapped this beautiful doctrine of hope to mean that in the Millennium you will get a chance regardless of your on-earth actions. If one uses their agency to choose not to get married, not to date, not to have kids, not to be baptized, to effectively live a lesser law, Satan tells them that in the Millennium they will be provided the ‘perfect‘ opportunity to have the things they have already rejected. I have seen a lot of people choose not to date because their dating prospects are not “perfect” even if they are temple-worthy, retorting, “Well, I got the Millennium!” Or friends who choose not to get married in the temple saying they can always get sealed in the Millennium.

I once had a recent convert who was dating a non-member call me and tell me it was getting serious and that her bishop had encouraged her to see where it led, including marriage. And that “Worst case, you can be sealed in the Millennium.” I explained to her that ALL of the prophetic promises regarding the Millennium are for opportunities denied through no fault of our own. If you choose to deny yourself of a temple marriage by choosing to marry outside the temple, you have no promise. She then said, “Then I will tell him I won’t marry outside the temple.”

She was thinking Celestial, she was refusing to settle and compromise, she was clinging to the Plan of Salvation and to the promise of President Lorenzo Snow, who declared: “There is no Latter-day Saint who dies after having lived a faithful life who will lose anything because of having failed to do certain things when opportunities were not furnished him or her. In other words, if a young man or a young woman has no opportunity of getting married, and they live faithful lives up to the time of their death, they will have all the blessings, exaltation and glory that any man or woman will have who had this opportunity and improved it. That is sure and positive.” (As quoted by Robert D. Hales Ensign, Oct. 2015)

3rd. We can repent in the Spirit World and still be exalted

Most of Christianity simply discards all those who die without accepting Christ as eternally lost. In the Biblical teachings of the Apostle Peter, we learn that the spirits of the dead are taught the gospel in the Spirit Prison (See 1 Peter 3:19 and 1 Peter 4:6). This doctrine is a revolutionary concept that most of Christianity simply ignores: In God’s Plan of Salvation there is hope for the dead!

We learn in the Doctrine and Covenants 137: 7-8 that those who did not have a chance to accept the gospel in this life, but who would’ve accepted the gospel “with all their heart” had they been given the chance in this life, will be able to accept it in the Spirit World and inherit Celestial Glory. That is mercy!

Satan twists this doctrine of hope for the dead to mean there are second chances for the dead to repent and receive Celestial Glory. That is not the case, that would be robbing justice. D&C 137:7-8 is about first chances, not second. In the Apr. 1948 General Conference, Bruce R. McConkie issued a warning regarding the work for the dead, he taught: “In this glorious doctrine of salvation for the dead, there is a warning to the Latter-day Saints. This warning arises because the doctrine is limited to those who die without a knowledge of the gospel. It has no application to us. As far as I am concerned, as far as you are concerned, as far as all the people are concerned who have a knowledge of the gospel, now is the time and the day of our salvation.”

This is vital to understand: Satan wants us to procrastinate the day of our repentance, to bank on repenting in the Spirit World. He wants you to believe that you will get a mulligan or do-over to live the Celestial Law and to obtain Celestial Glory. Whereas in reality, the Celestial Law entails striving, struggling, and desiring to do what is right in this life. Bruce R. McConkie in 1980 issued a second strong rebuke of this deadly idea of repenting in the Spirit World.

“This life is the time and day of our probation. After this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

“For those who do not have an opportunity to believe and obey the holy word in this life, the first chance to gain salvation will come in the spirit world. If those who hear the word for the first time in the realms ahead are the kind of people who would have accepted the gospel here, had the opportunity been afforded them, they will accept it there. …

“… Those who reject the gospel in this life and then receive it in the spirit world go not to the celestial, but to the terrestrial kingdom.”

As quoted by Doctrine and Covenants Institute Student Manual: The Vision of the Degrees of Glory

But Bruce R. McConkie was not alone in teaching these truths. President Dallin H. Oaks in the Oct. 2023 General Conference quoted President Russell M. Nelson who taught: “Mortal lifetime is barely a nanosecond compared with eternity. But what a crucial nanosecond it is! Consider carefully how it works: During this mortal life you get to choose which laws you are willing to obey—those of the celestial kingdom, or the terrestrial, or the telestial—and, therefore, in which kingdom of glory you will live forever. What a plan! It is a plan that completely honors your agency.”

A critical note on judging

Christ alone is the judge of whether or not someone has had their chance on earth. He has strictly and repeatedly commanded that we never pass final judgment on someone. Therefore, these principles of the Plan of Salvation should be used to guide OUR actions and to teach the truth to our fellow man. But never should we apply these principles to another person. We must always remember that Christ had to perform the atonement to be qualified to judge a single person. Therefore, let us never be so arrogant as to assume we, with our experiences are qualified to judge another.

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