This is the second installment of a talk entitled Our Pioneer Heritage, delivered 23 July 2006 in the Clinch River Ward, Knoxville Cumberland Stake.
Overview | Previous | Next

But this likening of Isaiah unto ourselves we undertake, following Nephi’s example (1 Nephi 19:23-24)—this discerned prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in ‘modern Israel,’ as the Church conceives itself—is not really the point I wish to make from Isaiah this morning in connection with pioneers. The point I wish to make has to do not with Isaiah looking forward in time, but at his own time—and then backwards in time.

Isaiah had a message for his own contemporaries: he felt called of the Lord to declare repentance and warn a wicked generation in imminent danger of destruction and captivity. The list of problems he observed was long, and for the sake of time I summarize rather than quote extensively—again, with some regret, because his descriptions of sin are beautifully poetic.

• There was adoption of the worldly ways and philosophies of, and intermarriage with, nations outside Israel and therefore outside the covenant (Isaiah 2:6).
• There was idolatry and rampant materialism (Isaiah 2:7-8).
• There was proud haughtiness among both the low and high segments of society (Isaiah 2:9; see also 2 Nephi 12:9).
• There was both rebellion against authority, and also leaders who abused their authority, beat[ing] my people to pieces, and grind[ing] the faces of the poor (Isaiah 3:12-15).
• There is a long and vivid and exquisitely detailed description of the expensive and immodest fashions of the daughters of Zion, [who] are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go (Isaiah 3:16-26).
• There is an equally picturesque description of men consumed by partying rather than participation in the Lord’s work, who would rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; [and] continue until night, till wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands (Isaiah 5:11-12).
• An general inversion of values prevailed, including: good called evil and evil gloried in; reliance on human wisdom coupled with impatient sign-seeking; and the guilty set free with bribes, with the righteous penalized (Isaiah 5:18-23).

In short, Isaiah was not at all pleased with what he perceived as a scene of opulent decadence and callous exploitation: The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not (Isaiah 3:9). (In the end, you see, I could not completely restrict myself to summary paraphrasing, but was unable to avoid the temptation to at least selective quotation.) It seems strange to us today, since with the exception of a couple of prominent but specific vices we’re not really used to being talked to like this by our leaders; but this is a broad and threatening indictment of the Lord’s covenant people of Isaiah’s day, the members of the Church, if you will, and not the external world!

Overview | Previous | Next

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Permanent link Comments feed (this post only)