Our spirits are very ancient and each life time brings more progress toward perfection.  This life we’re living now will end, but out spirits will never end, we only progress or retrogress depending on the choices we make.  This life Is a temporal existence……temporary.  The life we now live will pass and the choices we make will either send upward to enjoy more peace and joy because of added knowledge, (mankind can only be saved as quickly as they knowledge), or on the downward spiral to hell and misery.  It’s completely up to us where we go.  There’s only one way to get on the upward spiral and that is to listen to God’s voice.  He is the creator, law maker, Master of the Universe and He knows all truth.  When one is on the downward spiral, there is a way to start back up and that is to acknowledge that there is a God and that He can help you.  He loves us all unconditionally.  We’re His children!  

     Before this earth was ever created, God had already done all the planning.  He called a great counsel meeting to discuss His plans with His spirit children. After the plan was explained, He ask for a volunteer to help carry out the plan by coming to earth and showing us all the way back to our Father.  One of the sons, Lucifer, stood up and said, “Send Me! I’ll save every single soul and force everyone of them back, but, if I do that, I deserve all the glory!”  Another one stood up and said, “I’d like to go and I will give man his agency and let  him choose for himself where he will go and the glory be Thine!”  The Father chose the the latter because He knew that without agency, there could be no progression.  There must be opposition in all things in order that man may freely choose.  Lucifer was furious!  He rebelled, mustered all the spirits he could entice to follow him and fought for his plan.  God could not tolerate such nonsense and commanded him to leave and take his following with him.  He was cast down to earth where he’s still very active in claiming the souls of all who will follow him.

     The plan went forward and God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  The Garden when Adam and Eve first lived there, was a Terrestrial sphere.  Terrestrial is a higher level that this Telestial level where we now live.  Christ and God the Father can abide in a Terrestrial place, and they did walk and talk with Adam.  He was taught all about the plan God had for his children to progress.  They gave him the Priesthood and the fullness of the gospel.  They gave him the ordinances and taught him all that was necessary to again come back into their presence.  The ask him to offer sacrifices of animals, but they did not tell him why.  Adam and Eve just knew that they must obey God.  Who knows how long they lived there before old Satan came calling in the form of a serpent.  He was pretty mad because God had kicked him out of Heaven because of rebellion.  Lucifer, Star of the Morning, had taken one third of the spirits in Heaven and they followed him.  He had a particular mission to perform and that was to tempt and try God’s children,  (he’s still here and has a LOT of help!)  So, when Satan came tempting Eve, she conversed with him.  God had commanded them NOT to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil or they would surely die, so when Satan came tempting her, she told him that God had said that if they ate of the fruit, they would surely die.  Satan said that they would NOT surely die,but would know good from evil and then they would be as the Gods.  At his point Adam and Eve did not know evil, but Eve knew that they could go on living forever if they continued as they were doing and would never progress unless they did know good from evil.  So she could see the wisdom in partaking of the fruit, and she did partake and her eyes were opened.  She ask Adam to eat, but  he refused, because he wasn’t going to do anything contrary to what God had commanded and that God had said they were NOT to partake of the fruit of that tree.  God had also commanded them to multiply and replenish the earth. What a dilemma!  How could they keep both commandments?   Eve could see that unless Adam partook of the fruit, he would be left in the Garden all by himself because she would be cast out, and eventually die.  After some serious thought, Adam could see that Eve was right and he did eat. Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might have joy.  The whole purpose of creation was so that we could come down to earth and further our eternal progression, and learn what must be done for man to find joy and happiness.  

     So Adam and Eve were cast out into the lone and dreary world to eat their bread by the sweat of their brow They would have to work hard to sustain themselves. 

      God had planned for His children to have an opportunity to further their progression toward exaltation and eternal life and live with Him again someday, but it would be a long, long journey.  He knew that Satan would grab hold of the hearts of His children and try to win them over.  He knew how hard it would be for them to withstand Satan and they would sin.  He knew that there must be a way provided for them to have a Savior.  Jesus knew from the very beginning that part of his responsibility to God the Father would to offer Himself as a sacrifice to save mankind if they would but repent and follow Him.

     Eventually, an angel came to Adam and ask him why he was offering sacrifices.  He said he didn’t know except that God had told him to. Then the angel told Adam that they were making sacrifices in the similitude of the Only Begotten Son who would be crucified.  Then Adam understood.  He had been given everything….the fullness of the gospel, and all that went with it, and  was told to teach his children so that they could learn to obey God….or listen to Satan.  There were some good children, but not many.  Satan really did a number on one of Adam’s and Eve’s sons in whom they had taken great promise.  His name was Cain.  He enticed Cain to kill Abel, and because of that God cursed him with a sore curse.  He told him that he would never taste death, but would be a vagabond, walking the earth until the Second Coming of Christ.  He was told that he would be more powerful than Satan because he has a body and Satan does’t.  So he became Master Mahan, father of all the secret combinations.  Those combinations became so powerful that most all of Adam’s and Eve’s children followed Satan.  Those same combinations are still used today.  It’s time to totally follow our Savior.