Jeremiah 3-4

Jeremiah 3-4

Chapter 3: Gathering of Israel

                Israel is compared to an adulterous husband. In the days of Josiah, the Lord speaks about the high places in Israel, and about how Israel was punished. Judah, far from taking Israel’s as a cautionary tale, played the harlot also, and pretended to turn to the Lord.

It mentions that people “…committed adultery with stones and with stocks [wood].” (Jeremiah 3:9). Essentially people were having sexual relations with objects.These people were abusing the power of procreation for their own pleasure. An appeal is made for Israel to acknowledge transgressions, and be restored. In the last days the Lord shall gather all nations and bring them to Jerusalem. However, we learn that not everyone in a family will be gathered to Zion; “…I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.” (Jeremiah 3:14) This means that everyone in the family will need to be righteous in order to make it to Zion in the last days.

Chapter 4: Repent!

                The Lord appeals to the men of Judah and Jerusalem to circumcise their hearts. Mourn and repent – an evil is coming from the north. It mentions the people who are not following he Lord as “…foolish, they have not known me, they are sottish [drunken: in the habit of drinking far too much alcohol] children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” (Jeremiah 4:22) The land will be spoiled. “…all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord…” (Jeremiah 4:26) and the “…heavens above be black…” (Jeremiah 4:38). This will be the state of the world at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

Isaiah 33-34

Isaiah 33-34

Chapter 33: The Stakes of the Church

                Apostasy and wickedness precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ… The plundering Assyria will itself be plundered. Zion will be filled with wisdom and righteousness. The earth will mourn and lay waste. The breath of the Lord will devour like fire. Sinners shall be afraid, but the righteous will see the king in his beauty.

“He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high…” (Isaiah 33:15-16)

Zion, the city of appointed feasts, will be blessed and delivered.

In verse 20 it says “…not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed…” (Isaiah 33:320) This is the reason why the LDS church has Stakes; they are what hold down the church all over the world. (See Also: Isaiah 54:2)

Chapter 34: The Second Coming

                The indignation of the Lord is against all nations. The sword of the Lord will make a great slaughter in Edom. The land will be inhabited only by animals of the wilderness.

Isaiah 29-30

Isaiah 29-30

Chapter 29: The Book of Mormon

                Woe to Ariel (Jerusalem) – its pride shall be humbled. However, the humbled Jerusalem will be protected from its enemies. Jerusalem suffers from spiritual drunkenness and illiteracy. However, the spiritually blind will see, and justice for the wicked be administered.

                The coming forth of the Book of Mormon (to cure the spiritually blind) is prophesied:

                “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.” (Isaiah 29:4)

                The Book of Mormon came out from the ground and came forth as a familiar spirit and as a companion to the Bible, the New World story of the Ancient Americas. What is more interesting is that Isaiah continues to prophesy about the Book of Mormon…

“…the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.” (Isaiah 29: 11-12)

Joseph Smith received this book (the Book of Mormon), being unlearned. What’s more, he sent it with Martin Harris to the learned Professor Anthon, who reportedly said precisely “I cannot read it, for it is sealed.”

                Ezekiel prophesied of a Stick of Judah (Ezekiel 37:15-17), (a stick is a book or a scroll) these are the Jews and this stick is the Bible. He also prophesied of a Stick of Joseph, these are descendants of Joseph, down through Lehi and his descendants who came to the New World. He and his descendants wrote the Book of Mormon.

                Isaiah continues by saying that God will “…proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” (Isaiah 29:14) God will bring forth more of His word, what is more marvelous than that? People long for the Lord to speak and reveal that He still lives, the Book of Mormon proves that Jesus Christ Lives! It is Another Testament of Him! In the last days the word will become confused and many will wonder and stray away from God, the Book of Mormon will help people come back to the path… “They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine.” (Isaiah 29:24)

Chapter 30: Rejection of Prophets

                Woe to the rebellious children who look to Egypt to protect them from Assyria.

“…this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord:Which say to the seers, See not: and to the the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things…” (Isaiah 20:9-10) The people do not want seers to see, and want prophets to prophesy deceits rather than right things. They want “smooth things” or things that don’t require them to be righteous and follow commandments.

Judah will be broken like a potter’s vessel. Blessed are those who wait for the Lord. He shall respond to his people, who cry to him from Jerusalem. The Lord’s people will throw away their graven images of gold and silver. Nature will bring forth abundance. There is a place in Tophet (the rubbish dump outside Jerusalem) for the Assyrian king. The breath of the Lord shall kindle it.

Remember that “…though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction… This is the way, walk ye in it…” (Isaiah 30:20-21) OR in other words… the Lord gives us affliction… but we need to move forward and walk in His path, and we will be blessed and those afflictions will be for our own growth and learning.

Isaiah 23-24

Isaiah 23-24

Chapter 23: Tyre Shall be Overthrown

The burden against Tyre. The sailors will agonize when they hear about the destruction of their home port. The pride of Tyre will be dishonoured. Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years. God will allow Tyre, symbolized by a prostitute, to continue her gross materialism with all the kingdoms of the world, but her gain and her pay will be set apart for the Lord.

Chapter 24: Men Shall Change the Scriptures

                The land will be emptied and laid waste. The earth will mourn and fade away, because people “…have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant” (Isaiah 23:5). The simple doctrines and ordinances taught by the Savior were debated and changed to conform to worldly ideas. This would lead to the need for a Restoration of the Gospel.

                The Book of Mormon expands on what happened:

“And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have takenaway from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away…this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men… after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book… And after these plain and precious things were taken away it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles… Neither will the Lord God suffer that the Gentiles shall forever remain in that awful state of blindness, which thou beholdest they are in, because of the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church, whose formation thou hast seen….

 behold, saith the Lamb: I will manifest myself unto thy seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious; and after thy seed shall be destroyed, and dwindle in unbelief, and also the seed of thy brethren, behold, these things shall be hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb…. And after it had come forth unto them I beheld other books, which came forth by the power of the Lamb, from the Gentiles unto them, unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true…. These last records, which thou hast seen among the Gentiles, shall establish the truth of the first, which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them; and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved.(1 Nephi 13:26-40)

                In the last days the Book of Mormon will come forth as Another Testament (or evidence) of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 1-2

Isaiah 1-2

Chapter 1: Zion and the Restoration

                This is the vision of Isaiah and what saw through what I see as the Lord’s eyes; “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.” (Isaiah 1:4) God is no doubt, upset and very angry with what He sees. The Lord compares Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah for its apostasy and evil.

The Lord speaks about the prayer of the hypocrite; “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.” (Isaiah 1:15) But there is a remedy to this sin and evil… “Wash you, make you clean… Learn to do well… reason together… though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as now; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

If we repent, the Lord will forgive us! But we must be willing to make changes and make ourselves clean from those sins. If are willing, we will “…eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured…” (Isaiah 1:19-20)

Chapter 2: Temples in the Last Days

                Isaiah sees a vision of the latter days…

                “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the tops of mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:2-4)

                Essentially Isaiah sees a vision of the last days, where God’s church would be restored and the Temples would be built and shortly following that the Second Coming of Jesus would happen, where there would be 1,000 years of peace in the World.

                The most interesting part of this, to me, is the following: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the tops of mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it…” (Isaiah 2:2) The reason this is so fascinating to me, is because the “tops of mountains” is a translation of a meaning of the word “Ute” which was the Indian Tribe of Utah, where the state was named and one of the most famous Temples in the world… the Salt Lake Temple has visitors from ALL around the world flock there on a daily basis. Isaiah was speaking of the Latter-day Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

                In the last days, the proud and the wicked will be brought low and the judgement will occur for everyone during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I suggest anyone reading this and wanting to know more, would watch the movie "Mountain of the Lord"