Isaiah Part Un - Come Follow Me with Sam

 It's Isaiah time!!!

First, as you may well know, I tackled a lot of Isaiah chapters during the book of 2 Nephi back in 2020. This can be a great study guide for this week, but I will not actually be referencing them. at all. I won't even look at them during this time. Of course their will be many similarities to what I write today vs 2 years ago because I can't and wouldn't just magically clear my mind of all previous conceptions, but I won't actively seek to influence my writing by what I said previously. The reason is that I have new perspectives and thoughts and I want to capture them without unduly influencing them with what I already said. This means there may be different foci, interpretations, or even straight up contradictions to what I said previously. At a later date, I will go through both of them and compare what I know then and what I know now and synthesize the sides. But for now, this is a technique for me to put down my thoughts without subconsciously or consciously censoring new ideas.

Also, I will endeavor to read all Isaiah Chapters. As such, week 1 will be Isaiah 1-12, week 2 will be Isaigh 13-39, and week 3 will be Isaiah 40-66

Isaiah is a very strange and complex book. It isn't accurate to say it is filled with poetry because that is like saying that kubla khan, or ozymandias, or the raven is filled with poetry. It isn't filled with poetry, It IS poetry.

In similar manner, it is hardly honest to describe it as a book filled with symbols. Isaiah is double or even triple prophesying (speaks of one thing that represents the present, the mortal Messiah, and the Millenial Messiah), structuring patterns across verses chapters, sections, and even the whole book, etc. We don't have a good grip on writings like this in the West, but instead of saying it is filled with symbols, we would be more accurate to call it something like a super symbol, or a super metaphor, with everything linking back to each other in an asynchronous story.

In my experience, trying to interpret Isaiah 1 to 1 to decipher last days events sounds like a really bad place to start. God is much more concerned for the growth of your soul than that you know all the events that happen in the last day, and Isaiah is meant to help you become the correct kind of being to welcome the savior, not be some sort of event-based map that guides you to the right physical location to meet the savior.

I still find Avraham Gileadi's ladder to heaven the most useful conceptualization to understand Isaiah's purpose. Isaiah is 

1. taking the worldly world and teaching them to believers,

2. taking believers and teaching them to become a covenent people and actually follow the covenants they made for the establishment and fulfillment of zion.

3. taking true covenant makers and teaching them to become elect under God

4. pointing towards progression to be as angels of God and even as God Himself.

After you refine yourself, I believe you will be filled with the spirit of prophesy, and then if Isaiah inspires specific warnings to which you must give heed, you will receive them and be able to act on them.

One final note that should go without saying. The Spirit is always the teacher. if I say something here that the Spirit doesn't teach of, then what I said doesn't matter. If the smartest man or woman of the world expounds Isaiah, and the Spirit holds His peace, then we should focus elsewhere for the true teaching. Conversely, if the person learning does not importune the Spirit, and has not cultivated that relationship, or not disposed from themselves their sins, their small-mindness, and their natural man, and rejects words that would have been a testimony for them, it is their own condemnation.

okay, finally on with Isaiah. Just because I break these up into chapters doesn't mean you should be deceived. There are themes that go across chapters, hop across chapters, expand chapters, all the things. Look at this as trying to take bite-size chunks of something that, while not truly representing the whole it was woven from, at least gets you started in the right direction.

Isaiah 1

This reads like an introduction, a lot like D&C 1, which actually came after many of the next sections, and was specifically revealed to give a voice of warning and explain the purpose of the church and the doctrine and covenants of the last days.

this chapter is brutal, particularly to those who call themselves covenent keepers. This isn't made to overwhelm or make all the church members feel bad, but brace yourselves because Isaiah has some very difficult things to say.

here is a nice taste:

 - vs 3 you ( who call yourselves members of Christ's (Jehovah's) church) don't understand me (God) or recognize me truly as your God

- vs 4you are gone away backward. You have regressed from the knowledge given you and made (in a sense) negative progress, falling back into darkness, vain things, false living, etc. This sucks.

vs 5 your whole head (that which leads you) is sick. your whole heart (your life-force and motivation to follow and, more mystically, your existence factor, soul-factor, and connection to the greater things) is faint. and in vs 6, everything is broken in some way

vs 8 you have hardly any of zion left among you.

vs 10 you are like Sodom and Gomorrah. at this point it may be tempting to think that Isaiah has switched context from 'believers and covenant makers' to the world, but notice that he immediately launches after this verse into describing the practices and covenants of these two, not into the practices of the world. What he is essentially saying here is that 'you think that you are different from sodom and gomorrah, but what you are doing/how you are living is actually like them, despite all the the things you think separate you from them otherwise. Extremely harsh condemnation language. Vs 9 adds a qualifier that leads to redemption of this situation that I will talk about later.

vs 11 your sacrifices have no salvific effect, they are as empty as your hearts

vs 12 you come to worship, but you don't actually have invitation - either the power or the authority or both is missing. You don't have the right that you presume you have, and this speaks especially to temple-goers. I don't believe that this should diminish your intent, worthiness, or frequency of going to the temple in any way, actually the opposite. Instead, it is a change in purpose. Assume (you technically shouldn't have to assume this in the proper circumstances because it is straight up part of the instructions) that you are not someone who has earned the promises yet but that you are humbly begging God to recognize the sincerity of your actions, and the diligence with which you come up to the House of the Lord and with which you bring the covenats of the Lord down back to your own house and life, and to give you the further light and knowledge He has promised to those who seek Him.

vs 13/14 your sacrifices, ceremonies, words, all 'oblations', since they are empty, are an abomination. Also your first meetings of the month (yes, these would be fast sundays in the harshest interpretation) are iniquity.

vs 15. your hands are full of blood

vs 21 - your so-called 'faithful' are harlots. They are all making out with Babylon or worse.

vs 22 what you think is pure worship is waste, scum, scrap. what you think is the pure gospel is just a watered down version.

vs 23 your leadership is corrupt. they do not build zion (fatherless and widow) and so they are thieves, robbing God of the things He gave them to do that. they love gifts and rewards instead of zion.

So that is all pretty hard to bear. Luckily, this chapter wasn't written entirely in condemnation. In fact, I would argue that Isaiah is laying so much of the groundwork of the awful state we are in not because it is his main point, but because he wants us to understand just what is at stake and how to get out of this.

in the redemption portion of the chapter, Isaish says this

vs 16 - get rid of all of this. wash yourselves. Get rid of anything bad in your life.

vs 17 - you are going to need to learn a lot do do this. seek zion again. its going to take practice.

vs 18 - talk with me (God) sincerely, without any false pretense. You can purge all of these things from you and get out of your awful state, out of all of it, 100% deliverance, if you cling to Christ.

The last portion is the process of refinement. The implication is that if you have applied yourselves to the redemptive part, you will become pure as through fire. If you have not applied your hearts to this understanding, the process will burn you away instead.

vs 9 except that God has preserved a remnant of the church, of the believers, and most importantly, a piece within us that is true and good, we would have been no different from Sodom and Gomorroah (completely burned away). This helps us understand the verses previously mentioned. God is saying more that part of your soul that is not turned to Him falls to this condemnation but that part of your soul that clings to Him can be the seed of salvation. But you have to do the vs 16-18 process if this is going to work.

vs 25 all the waste, scrap, and scum in your life can be burned away. That which is silver will not only be left, but will be left to fill the void, and your life.

vs 26, 27 your leadership will once again come to God. Zion will be established again, redeemed with judgement (judgement doesn't always mean condemnation, it can mean weighing, measuring, understanding, refining)

Isaiah 2

will update at a later date 

Isaiah 3

will update at a later date

Isaiah 4

will update at a later date

Isaiah 5

will update at a later date

Isaiah 6

will update at a later date

Isaiah 7

will update at a later date

Isaiah 8

will update at a later date

Isaiah 9

will update at a later date

Isaiah 10

will update at a later date

Isaiah 11

will update at a later date

Isaiah 12

will update at a later date