Question: I’ve heard it preached by authority that there will never be another apostasy. While not wishing to dwell on this subject, what does Isaiah say about it?
Answer: The pulpit narrative you cite is a polar opposite of the scriptures narrative, Isaiah’s in particular. Persons who make such entitled statements evidently don’t understand the scriptures. Rather, they typify the very apostasy that precipitates God’s Day of Judgment on a wicked world. The other extreme—of seeing apostasy everywhere—is equally reprehensible.
What the scriptures do say is that the Aaronic Priesthood “shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness” (Doctrine and Covenants 13:1). The same is inferred of the Melchizedek Priesthood, as, “if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming” (Doctrine & Covenants 2:1–3).
Persons ordained to these priesthoods are thus likened to the “sons of Levi” and “sons of Moses.” Their priesthoods remain on the earth until they “offer an acceptable offering and sacrifice in the house of the Lord.” That is, “until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets” is fully accomplished (Doctrine & Covenants 84:31, 34; 86:10).
We further observe these enduring priesthoods in God’s end-time servant—“the root of Jesse”—“unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days” (Doctrine & Covenants 113:5–6). Assisting him in that gathering are the spiritual kings and queens of the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:22–23).
Their task—that of the 144,000 servants of God (Revelation 7:2–8; 14:1–5)—is “to bring as many as will come to the Church of the Firstborn” (Doctrine & Covenants 77:11). In other words, to the level of God’s elect, so that they may escape the end-time destruction of the world and receive lands of inheritance in Zion in fulfillment of the Father’s covenant with them.
It is God’s end-time servant, therefore—when “the great day of the Lord is at hand”—who will “prepare the way before me,” who will “sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” (Malachi 3:1–3; 3 Nephi 23:1–3; Doctrine & Covenants 128:24).
He and his fellow servants, who are “abhorred” and “shamed” by their entitled “brethren” (Isaiah 49:7; 61:7; 66:5), God ultimately vindicates. In the great division that occurs among them, it is the Lord who determines who are the apostates and who are his servants: “My servants shall shout indeed, for gladness of heart, while you shall cry out with heartbreak” (Isaiah 65:14).
