In four years of diligent preaching, Helaman and company had successfully established peace among the members of the Church (Alma 48:20). With an impenetrable happiness among the saints, it seems the only way that Satan could get to the righteous was to stir up dissension and contention on political grounds. His resourcefulness can be exhausting and requires exhaustive measures to combat.
Today, there are some who are comfortable with the stability within the Church, declaring, ‘All is well in Zion’ (2 Nephi 28:21). However, in times of internal stability, we need to be even more aware of what is going on around us. Political and social dissensions which usually begin as ‘warm contentions’ and ‘warm disputes’ (Alma 50:26; 51:4) are designed by the wicked one to destroy freedom. In other words, we need to recognize the latter-day “king-men” for what they really are—Satan’s unwitting “henchmen.”
Orson F. Whitney
“It is Lucifer…who seeks the overthrow of free institutions, free churches, free government, and who saps wherever he can the foundation of the rights of man. That same fallen being, once called the Morning Star, presented himself before the Father, at the beginning, and offered himself as a candidate for the saviorship of this world. He declared--had the audacity to declare--that his purpose was to save man in his sins. ’Not one soul shall be lost.’ He proposed to compel all to be saved, and sought to destroy the free agency of man.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1906, p. 71)
Joseph Fielding Smith
“One of our speakers yesterday said that we were living in a very critical time. For many years we have been living in peace and comparative prosperity, we have had no contentions with our neighbors; on the surface at least their feelings have been kindly, and apparently everything has been in the nature of peace and prosperity. But these are the times when Latter-day Saints should take heed concerning the revelations of the Lord and desire to keep his commandments with full purpose of heart, more perhaps than at any other time.” (Conference Report, Apr. 1926, p. 54)