Sunday, March 24, 2024

Isaiah’s Lamentations?

If we accept that circa 34 A.D., Jesus commanded His people to
“search the words of Isaiah” because “all things that [Isaiah] spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake,”1
then do we ponder our place in those lamentations? Or are we so immersed in the environs of Babylon, like fish in water, that seeing, we see not how surrounded, compromised, distracted, preoccupied, addicted2 we are? Do we ever ask how Isaiah’s words might apply to us in this very hour? how near his warnings might be to literal fulfilment?

What are we to make of these three lamentations out of many possible?
4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
5 ¶ Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
10 ¶ Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah (Old Testament | Isaiah 1:4–10).

8 ¶ The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.
9 And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart,
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together;
12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 ¶ For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
18 ¶ For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother (Old Testament | Isaiah 9:8-19).

9 ¶ Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.
10 Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.
11 Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.
12 They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.
13 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city:
14 Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; (Old Testament | Isaiah 32:9-14).
Let us take time to ponder: How much social-consensus and self-centrism is manifest in our thoughts and behaviours? Have we any awareness of how our society has initiated and embraced the return of the old world gods Baal, Moloch, and Ishtar3 — the gods that caused so much prophetic lamentation in the past? How many of us naively participate in or affirm the rites, rituals, fashions, philosophies, and parades of the revived gods? And if we have somehow avoided the lure of Babylon and her resurgent gods, are we content with the praise of our goodness? the preaching of a 180 gospel of love and mercy almost completely ignoring justice and judgment, except for our judgments of the transparently wicked world?

Except, to whom were the majority of Isaiah’s lamentations and warnings directed?

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1.  Book of Mormon | 3 Nephi 23:1-5 (Bold emphasis added.)
    AND now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.
    For surely he spake as touching all things concerning my people which are of the house of Israel; therefore it must needs be that he must speak also to the Gentiles.
    And all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake.
    4 Therefore give heed to my words; write the things which I have told you; and according to the time and the will of the Father they shall go forth unto the Gentiles.
    And whosoever will hearken unto my words and repenteth and is baptized, the same shall be saved. Search the prophets, for many there be that testify of these things.
2. New Testament | Acts 17:21
   21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) (Bold emphasis added.)
3. Cahn, Jonathan. The Return of the Gods. Charisma House. Kindle Edition.