When Isaiah says, “Turn away, depart; touch nothing defiled as you leave [Babylon]. Come out of her and be pure, you who bear Jehovah’s vessels. But you shall not leave in haste or go in flight: Jehovah will go before you, the God of Israel behind you” (Isaiah 52:11–12), what is his definition of “pure” that occasions Jehovah’s presence accompanying those who bring Israel’s “vessels” or returnees (Isaiah 66:20) from their scattered state in an end-time exodus to Zion?
When he further says, “Raise the ensign on a barren mountain; sound the voice among them! Beckon them with the hand to advance into the precincts of the elite. I have charged my holy ones, called out my valiant ones: my anger is not upon those who take pride in me” (Isaiah 13:2–3), who are those saved when the end-time king of Assyria—the “ensign,” “voice,” “hand,” and “anger” of the wicked—causes “utter destruction upon the whole earth”? (Isaiah 10:1–23).
Who are those pure, holy, and valiant souls whom the Lord spares from destruction if not those same spiritual kings and queens of the Ephraimite Gentiles whom his righteous “ensign” and “hand” calls to gather Israel to Zion: “I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, raise my ensign to the peoples; and they will bring your sons in their bosoms and carry your daughters on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, queens your nursing mothers” (Isaiah 49:22–23)?
Are we not to “prepare yourselves, and sanctify yourselves; yea, purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean; That I may testify unto your Father, and your God, and my God, that you are clean from the blood of this wicked generation,” in order “that ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you (Doctrine & Covenants 88:74–75, 80)? What is that “calling”?
Having been commanded of the Lord to “teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom. . . that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand,” those who become “clean from the blood of this generation” are then called to that covenant of brotherhood of God’s special ministering servants (Doctrine & Covenants 88:77–78, 133, 138).
Like ancient servants of God, those who restore end-time Israel are expected to “magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day” (Jacob 1:19).
Are we aware of “how great is your calling,” for which we must “cleanse your hearts and your garments, lest the blood of this generation be required at your hands” (Doctrine & Covenants 112:33)? Unless the spiritual kings and queens of the Ephraimite Gentiles learn to see “what was not told them” and consider “what they had not heard” (Isaiah 52:15), how shall they serve as saviors to the house of Israel to restore them to God’s covenant and bring them to Zion?
