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.
