Satan works in the
world in various and devious ways. He assimilates so many good things and
covers them so well that they look like truth instead of error. I often reflect
upon poor Judas Iscariot, and that the basis of his trouble was gold. It was
not gold for himself; it was gold for the group for some good purpose such as
feeding the poor. Nor did he, I am sure, when he began his negotiations with
the plotters, have any thought that the Master would suffer by what he was
doing. I am sure that Satan called his attention the great miracles of the
Savior: He had walked upon the water; He had healed the sick; He had raised the
dead; at Nazareth, He had passed out through the crowd that would slay Him, and
escaped unharmed. He had done the same again in Jerusalem when they thought to
take His life; the raising of Lazarus had been but a short time before, and how
could he assume that the Saviour would not again deliver Himself and he, Judas,
have the thirty pieces of silver for the use of the Twelve.
Thus did Satan work
in his mind, and that I am reasonably accurate in my assumption, is shown by
the fact that when the Savior, moving along the road which God had laid down
before for Him to follow, passed onward through His trials before Pilate and
Herod, and then journeyed on to the cross, Judas took back his thirty pieces of
silver and attempted to save the life of the Savior. Thus Satan, I repeat,
disgusted his method of fraud. He makes error look like the truth. He makes
unrighteousness look like righteousness, so much so that he well nigh leads
astray the elect themselves. (Priesthood Session, October 1934, in David H.
Yarn, Jr., ed., J. Reuben Clark: Selected Papers [Provo: Brigham Young
University Press, 1984], 203-4)
