With the Internet flooded with podcasts about end-time events, we are seeing a sudden surge of presentations on the subject of Isaiah—as if Isaiah is now in vogue as a way to interest people in their platforms. Others are indeed sincere attempts to interpret Isaiah’s words but lack sufficient background to convey a credible message. A word of caution is therefore warranted about those purveyors of the prophecies of Isaiah who haven’t first paid the price of understanding them.
As Isaiah’s words form an integrated whole, one can’t interpret any part of it without connecting it to the rest. Those who still teach the old precepts of men based on proof-texting, not analyzing what Isaiah actually says, continue to lead people astray. Others, to whom Isaiah’s words are a smorgasbord from which to pick what appeals; and yet others, who lay hold of a truth and then put their own spin on it—adding or taking away—all these qualify as modern deceivers of men.
Knowing that no truth comes forth or takes hold among people without a price being paid, I ask those who are hopping on Isaiah’s bandwagon whether they are willing to pay the price—even with the simple literary tools now available—to comply with Jesus’ commandment to search the words of Isaiah diligently before they teach them. If they are willing to pay that price, though it demands a considerable investment of time, they will get it right and become a blessing to others.
Reviewing my backstory over many years of discovering the literary tools for interpreting Isaiah, I may not have anticipated how traumatic and protracted would be the descent phase I needed to pass through. Looking back, however, I would not change anything the Lord required of me so that the Book of Isaiah might be unsealed in the eyes of all. Even now, I anticipate yet another such descent phase for all who fully embrace Isaiah’s words and who commit to fulfill them.
Can anyone today even guess that a person could be excommunicated for teaching from Isaiah that the servant he speaks of is not Jesus Christ or the prophet Joseph Smith but an end-time forerunner of Jesus’ second coming? That the great and marvelous work Isaiah and Book of Mormon prophets speak of is not the restoration of the gospel but the restoration of the house of Israel? That Latter-day Saints are identified as the Gentiles, not the house of Israel? And so forth.
Would there not ensue a residual blindness in those who perpetrated such harsh measures upon many? Measures based not on God’s truth but on a pulpit narrative of that day? And as the next generation inherited this blindness, would that not ultimately lead to the prophesied division between those still perpetuating the old narratives as a means of self-preservation and those now awakening out of a deep sleep, laying hold of God’s truth, and seeing through the deception?
