John Bytheway: 00:00:01 Welcome to part two of Isaiah 13 through 35 with Dr. Kerry Muhlestein.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:00:08 I’d like to just jump a little bit to chapter 27. 24 through 27, each chapter in some ways says the same thing as the next chapter. It’s just this theme that he keeps repeating, but he does it so beautifully. I just want to look at verse one of chapter 27.

John Bytheway: 00:00:25 That’s really powerful, beautiful stuff, and I love that you said it’s not just Assyrians and Babylonians and New Testament Romans that are our enemy. I’m going to swallow up death.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:00:36 Let’s think for a moment. My students often feel uncomfortable, and we encounter this all over in scriptures but especially in Isaiah, they feel uncomfortable when they read something about God destroying cities or being violent. There are times in Isaiah where he says, “You’re violent.” They feel uncomfortable with that, but we have to couple it with verse eight and nine. I think chapter 27:1 really helps us with this. This is a phrase that a lot of my students are not comfortable with, but I rejoice in.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:01:04 So chapter 27:1, “In that day, the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” Then verse two, “And that day sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine.” He’s singing because God has a sore and great and strong sword that he punishes with.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:01:30 Most of us don’t like to think of Christ or Jehovah going around with a great big sword, but we like to think of him having a hanky in his hand that can wipe away all the tears from off our faces, but the reason he can wipe away the tears from off our faces is because he had a sword and he killed leviathan with it. Leviathan is this great serpent that probably isn’t real, but it represents chaos and death and hell and everything else, and it’s because Christ is a divine warrior, it is because he will destroy all oppression that he can wipe our tears away. There’s no wiping our tears away if he doesn’t have a sword in the other hand.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:02:08 I think we need to understand that. To some degree, there’s a great comfort. We all have something that’s oppressing us. There are Assyrians all over in our life, and it might be pornography. It might be depression and/or anxiety. It might be that I’m never going to get married. It might be physical things that are afflicting us. Whatever it is, we all have an Assyrian in our life, but what we can be sure of is that Christ can conquer every single one of those because he has a sword that is sore and great and strong, and after he conquers those oppressions, then he can wipe our tears away.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:02:44 That image is as moving to me as anything anywhere in scripture. It speaks to me as I watch my children struggle with things. It speaks to me as I watch my students and my ward members struggle with things. As I struggle with things, I rejoice in knowing that Jehovah has a sword, and one day that sword will conquer and lay waste to everything that is hard, and then he’ll just turn around and wipe my tears away.

Hank Smith: 00:03:15 Oh, how great the goodness of our God who prepares a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster. Might even say leviathan there, right? That monster death and hell.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:03:28 Remember, Jacob’s in the middle of teaching about Isaiah chapters when he says that. I have no doubt he’s got this stuff in his mind.

John Bytheway: 00:03:34 Yeah. He’s just taught in 2 Nephi seven and eight or Isaiah chapters, and then I have called nine the Os and the woes chapters because at first, there’s all this, “O, the greatness of our God,” and then it becomes, “But woe unto …”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:03:47 You can see it’s this same thing. It’s this same theme that God is great, and as a result, he’ll get rid of all the bad stuff and the Os are the God is great, and the woes are all the bad stuff he’s going to get rid of. We just need to make sure, and this is a real lesson, you better make sure you’re on the right side of that sword. If you are oppressing God’s people, you’re in trouble. I know people who feel like they’re actually doing God’s work, but in reality, they’re oppressing God’s people. They’re fighting against the prophet. They’re saying, “Well, the prophet doesn’t see the things the right way. This is the right way and please listen to me on this,” but when they’re doing that, they’re really oppressing God’s people. Oh, you’re going to end up on the wrong side of that sword. If you’re on the wrong side of the prophet, you’re on the wrong side of that sword.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:04:31 So then you’re on the woes part, and that’s exactly what he says in 2 Nephi 9, “Well, you’re learned, and so you think you know what you’re doing, but you’re not listening to God.” So you get the woes instead of the Os. I would say that 2 Nephi 9, which is Jacob’s commentary on the Isaiah chapters he’s been reading, but I think it’s a commentary on this stuff. He has this in his mind, I think, firmly in his mind as he talks about the things, conquering death and hell and so on.

Hank Smith: 00:04:56 Yeah. Kerry, you mentioned earlier the idea of patience. Back in 25 verse nine, “It shall be said in that day, ‘Lo, this is our God. We have waited for him and he will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.'” So there is an element you can see that Isaiah is saying, “Be patient. Let this plan play out.”

John Bytheway: 00:05:22 Boy, you know what that reminds me of, Hank? Just had an experience at the pool of Bethesda this last year. I read a talk from President Packer about those who are still waiting for the moving of the water. Oh, it’s a beautiful talk about those who take care of those who have disabilities of whatever kind and how they’re still waiting for the moving of the water like the man who waited for 38 years when Jesus came to see him. It’s a beautiful talk. If you want to, our listeners want to go find that, but a lot of life is waiting, isn’t it?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:05:57 Yeah. I know I and I know lots of other people in this situation where we have loved ones who are struggling with depression or anxiety or something like that. You just want them to be healed right now, and it’s breaking your heart that they’re not healed right now, but to some degree, we are just waiting, knowing that at some point that healing happens, that beast of an oppressor is going to meet the Savior’s sword and then we’ll rejoice, but it’s hard to wait.

John Bytheway: 00:06:29 Beautifully put. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:06:31 Speaking of this, we got a wonderful email, and he said, “I just wanted to express my gratitude to you and brother, Bytheway, for the Come Follow Me episodes. Last October, my daughter, one of your former students, was killed in a car accident with her best friend. I am still devastated and shocked that this is our new life to live without her. My wife and I have four other children to raise and we are doing the best we can in the situation we live in. I find so much strength with these podcasts. I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you’re doing them for all of us. These episodes have really helped me through the darkest year of my life.”

Hank Smith: 00:07:10 That really is our hope here is keep waiting. Like you said, Kerry, we just want so badly for now, we want to be reunited with loved ones that have passed away now. We want healing now. Isaiah 25:9, “This is our God. We have waited.” Keep waiting, keep holding on. As Michael McClain told us, John, “Hold on. The light will come.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:07:39 Yeah. I can’t tell you how many times in the last even six months I’ve been praying for my loved ones, and just praying, “Can you please do this now? We need this now,” and just pleading with all my heart, “We really could use this now.” Yet what I have to remind myself is I have seen moments that I can rejoice in, that I wanted it all better now, but I did see it’s a little better, and I need to rejoice in those little better moments while I’m still waiting for the big stuff. I’ll rejoice in those little moments and I can make it through the however long the wait is because I have full confidence in what Isaiah’s teaching me that eventually it may not be the now that I want, but eventually this happens.

Hank Smith: 00:08:28 Eventually the tears will be wiped from their faces.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:08:33 Yeah. Well, our prayers and thoughts go out to Bishop Hanson-

John Bytheway: 00:08:38 Oh, man. Absolutely.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:08:40 … and his family. Well, should we jump to chapter 28?

Hank Smith: 00:08:45 Please do.

John Bytheway: 00:08:45 Sure.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:08:46 Chapter 28 and 29, we’re fairly familiar with these as members of the church because Nephi makes reference to them and they have a lot of ways that we interpret them because of Nephi and Latter-day prophets as applying to the Latter-days, and I think those are valid, but I want us to see some other context that I think can help us get even more out of them.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:09:04 Before we get to the verses everyone’s familiar with, I think we need to read the beginning of chapter 28 because it actually helps us understand these verses. So we’ll start in verse one, “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim who’s glorious …” So this is specifically to the Northern kingdom, but he’s going to then start to talk about the Southern kingdom as well. So it’s also to the Southern kingdom. So that means it’s to all the covenant people, and that means it’s to me and you, but anyway, “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:09:33 So now in Israel, you get these beautiful flowers, and when the rainy season stops, you’ve got two weeks and they are gone, just gone, right? So much so that when I teach at the Jerusalem Center when the winter semester students leave, there’s still wild flowers all over the place. You’ve got a week and a half until the spring semester students come, and it’s a 50/50 chance whether they’ll see any flowers at all. If the rain goes a couple days longer, then they’ll see the flowers. If it ends right then, well, week and a half is too long, no more flowers, right? That’s it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:10:03 So that’s what he’s saying to these drunkards, “You’re so excited about these things that the world tells you is important, and it’s going to fade like a flower,” which are on the heads of the fat valleys, those that are overcome with wine. So a lot of imagery about being transient in nature and about drunkenness. Keep that in mind.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:10:22 Verse two, “Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.” So again, this imagery that there will be a servant or God himself is going to come and humble these drunkards that think they’re so great.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:10:40 Verse three, “The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet.” So transient, what they think is so wonderful is not going to last. Just in case we haven’t gotten this, he’s going to say it again, “And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.” This is the fruit that comes and you better eat it soon because with the summer heat, that fruit’s not going to last. We have refrigerators so we don’t think of that as much as if you didn’t have refrigerators, but if you pick a peach while it’s 90 degrees and you leave it out, it’s not so good pretty soon, right?

John Bytheway: 00:11:16 You’re right.

Hank Smith: 00:11:17 So Kerry, this is one of those instances where we talked about with Dr. Combs that he repeats himself. He’s a poet. So he just repeated himself twice. Said the same thing basically twice.

John Bytheway: 00:11:29 Right. It’s the parallelism. Yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:11:31 It’s parallelism, and that also gives emphasis and it helps us remember. This is important. He wants us to get it, and he’s going to keep saying that for a while. He’s going to talk about their beauty and the judgment, and verse seven is more about that they’ve erred through wine and strong drink and they’re out of the way because of strong drink. I want to look at the very end of verse seven, “They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.” Keep those in mind.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:11:55 Now, verse eight is an image that we don’t want to have, but Isaiah paints this image really well. “For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.” Now, you get that with a bunch of drunkards. They’ve drunk so much, this is what happens, right? They drank so much that they just vomited all over the table. I mean, he’s thinking about ritually clean. It’s all ruined now because you all threw up all over yourselves because you’re so drunk, but that brings us to verse nine, “Whom shall he teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.” So this is where we get this milk before meat thing, but once you’ve had the milk, now you can have meat.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:12:35 So he’s saying, “I’ve got all these drunkards who think they know what they’re doing, and they’re these false prophets and false leaders. They’re the people who are supposed to be teaching true doctrine, but they’re not. They’re concerned with the things of the world, and so really, they’re drunk.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:12:48 Now, I want to just take a second and say this is really happening for Judah and Israel. They really have leaders who should be leading them in righteousness, political leaders, spiritual leaders who should be leading them in righteousness and they are not, and they get drunk both on the ideas of the world and on real wine. So they’re leading them into unrighteousness, but we should think about how this happens in our life as well. We choose all sorts of leaders, thought leaders in our lives. There are people from Hollywood who set themselves up as prophets. There are people in radio city. There are people on podcasts. Not you guys. There are people on TV shows in Ivory Towers, in newspaper columns, all sorts of people that are spewing out filth in the name of the world, wisdom of the world, and we’re eating it up. I want you to think of that image. You’re eating up the filth that they’re spewing out in their spiritual drunkenness.

Hank Smith: 00:13:48 The tables of vomit and filthiness. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:13:51 Oh, man.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:13:51 Yeah, yeah. When we listen to these ideas, these ideas that run directly contrary to what the prophets are teaching us, we are eating spiritual vomit. As a result, we’re not the ones who he’s going to teach knowledge and get to understand doctrine. So let’s keep going. Verse 10, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.”

Hank Smith: 00:14:20 I love the contrast, Kerry. It’s wow, gross, but the vomit coming out of these people versus a mother’s milk in verse nine, that’s about as stark difference as you can get.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:14:33 You’re absolutely right. After he says precept upon precept, and we’re going to come back to that, and line upon line, verse 11, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, ‘This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear,’ but the word of the Lord was unto them, ‘Precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little;’ that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:15:02 So look at what we’ve got in verse 12 and 13. This isn’t how we usually think of this. This is saying that there are people who aren’t understanding and they get precept upon precept, line upon line, and they’re snared and fall away from it. That seems a little odd to us.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:15:18 Well, let’s investigate this just a little bit more because this is actually verse 10 and verse 13 are actually incredibly difficult to translate partially because Isaiah isn’t fully using real words. The words that we translate is precept upon precept and line upon line aren’t full words. They’re partial words, and we translate it that way because they come from the root for a measuring line that you would measure out and a commandment, okay? So that’s precept upon precept and line upon line, but he doesn’t give the full word.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:15:49 So let me just recite it for you a little bit in Hebrew. It goes [foreign language 00:15:54] That sounds like gibberish, doesn’t it? It’s not a full word, and so it’s intended to sound like gibberish so that when you get this phrase with stammering lips and another tongue, will he speak unto the people? The translation is good, “Precept upon precept, line upon line,” because he’s clearly using a form of those words, but it’s like if I was saying, “Cept to cept to cept to cept,” and then, I don’t know what, “ine to ine to ine to ine,” and you get, “Okay. I think he’s saying precept and line, but I don’t know, and it just sounds stupid.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:16:29 What he seems to be saying is to the people who are spiritually drunk, who have filled themselves up on the wine instead of the milk and now some opportunity for meat, but Isaiah is teaching them are what God gives them is gibberish. It’s gobbledygook. To them, it makes no sense. Now remember, Isaiah’s call was to teach in such a way that those who weren’t prepared wouldn’t get it, and only those who were prepared would get it. I think this is another version of that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:17:00 So to those who are prepared, it actually is coming line upon line, precept upon precept, and Nephi will use it that way, and it’s a perfect, wonderful, valid interpretation of that, but to those who aren’t prepared, it’s [foreign language 00:17:13] It’s just gibberish, and they fall away back backwards, and they’re broken, and they’re snared. It sounds like if someone with a stammering lip and another tongue means like a foreign language, it just sounds like a foreign language to them because it makes no sense.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:17:28 I think this is so true. When we are steeped in what the world is telling us, the things the prophets say don’t make sense. We say, “You’re wrong. No, I can’t believe you just said that. It just doesn’t compute for someone who is full of the spewing spiritual vomit of the world,” but to those who are prepared, they say, “Oh, wait, I get what you’re saying.” If people are even more prepared, get even more, and people are more prepared than they get even more, and we go bit by bit, line by line, precept upon precept when we’re prepared and we go backwards the same way when we’re not prepared.

Hank Smith: 00:18:06 This is 1 Corinthians 2:14. Paul says, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness-“

John Bytheway: 00:18:16 They’re foolishness, yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:18:17 “… unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” When you are gorging yourself on the vomit of the world, the spirit of God is anything that comes from the spirit will seem like gibberish like you said.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:18:32 Now, typically, you don’t realize you’re eating vomit. It’s because you’re so drunk you don’t know. You’ve listened to the ideas of the world so long. I think President Nelson, this is part of what he’s trying to get at when he said, “Make more time for Christ.” If most of your information is coming from social media or elsewhere, then you need to get more information from Christ. Stop listening to that so much and make more time for Christ because when we listen to that so much, we don’t realize that now all of our thinking is so colored by the lens of the world, that we can’t see it or understand it properly, and we don’t realize that we’re starting to eat spiritual vomit.

John Bytheway: 00:19:09 Oh, man. What you mentioned, President Nelson, and I love that statement. Most of the information you get comes from social media. Your ability to feel the spirit will be diminished. I’m remembering when Moroni all alone, the ultimate single adult, is writing to us and saying, “You’ve got to read this letter my dad sent me.” This Moroni 9, and he’s telling him, “It’s really bad, son. Things are really bad. The Nephites, they’re just as bad. They’re killing each other.”

John Bytheway: 00:19:41 Then he says, “May not the things which I’ve written grieve thee down to death,” but then he reminds him, “Here’s what I want,” the last phrase in there. “Think about Christ and how he visited us and let these things rest in your mind.” It’s the coolest phrase to me, “Let this rest in your mind forever,” instead of, as you’ve been saying, Kerry, all this stuff the world is spewing, the thought leaders that you used. If that’s the stuff that’s resting in your mind, your ability to feel the spirit will be diminished.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:20:11 See, and we choose our leaders. We choose who we listen to and we can listen to stuff nonstop these days. We can be listening to something every waking moment, and mostly, we are either listening or reading it on our phones. We have so much stuff coming in, and we have to be careful who we’re choosing. If it’s social media or most sources, it’s this spiritual vomit. I love the line you just gave us from President Nelson, where if that’s where we’re getting most of your stuff, and it doesn’t matter if you read the scriptures every day, if 99% of what you’re getting is somewhere else, you’ll lose the spirit. Well, if you don’t have the spirit with you, how can you understand the spiritual things as Paul said or as Isaiah said here, right? You just can’t.

John Bytheway: 00:20:56 Yeah. In the youth talk once, I just had this thought. I was talking about how we learned line upon … I was doing this with my hands, line upon line, precept upon precept, how we learn, and turned it upside down. What does Satan do? Lie upon lie, decept on decept.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:21:15 That’s pretty good.

John Bytheway: 00:21:16 That was my own, how did you say it [foreign language 00:21:19]

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:21:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:21:22 He’ll lead us carefully down to hell, lie upon lie, decept on decept.

Hank Smith: 00:21:26 One thing I’ve noticed so far is Isaiah does not hold back when he thinks the leadership is doing the wrong things. Here’s what you remind me of. You remind me of drunks, spewing forth vomit, and the people are eating it up. That’s what I think of your leadership.

John Bytheway: 00:21:41 Let me paint a word picture for you here, a really bad cafeteria.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:21:47 That’s right. Yeah. This is the cafeteria you want to avoid, but we all go there. Now that you know that these words, line upon line, precept upon precept, are drawing on the idea of at least the one about line or drawing upon a line that you use to measure things out, and when you’re constructing things, right? It’s a construction tool. It can add a little bit more meaning to verse 16 and 17.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:22:10 So this is the cure. This is the antidote for the spiritual vomit. Verse 16, “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.'”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:22:38 Do you see what he’s saying? He’s taking the same [foreign language 00:22:40] and saying, “It’s gibberish to you, but I’m going to use these tools, and for those who are getting it line upon line and precept upon precept, I will lay out, measure out the sure foundation that will allow you, which is truth and which is Christ and Christ is truth, that will allow you to withstand when I send a storm that sweeps away the lies, you’re going to be okay because you’re on a sure foundation. I am going to get rid of the lies.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:23:12 At some point, there will be only truth left, but those who are swimming in the lies are going to get washed away. Those who have learned line upon line and precept upon precept will be standing on a sure foundation and they can withstand the storm. So he’s so clever. This is one of those places where you go, “Wow, Isaiah’s good.”

John Bytheway: 00:23:27 Isn’t it fun to see these phrases that we probably are more familiar with in other books of scripture like, “Oh, a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build …” Well, they cannot. You can hear Helaman talking to Nephi and Lehi, and to see cornerstone and foundation, I love how, and this is I think, Hank, isn’t it true one of the comments we’re getting is, “I’m seeing so much of the Book of Mormon here in Isaiah,” or “I’m seeing other scriptures.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:23:54 Well, and here’s a fun little chain for you to go through then. Helaman, who does he read? He reads Nephi and Jacob. Well, Jacob is the one who talks about a foundation when he does Jacob 6 and so on. He’s thinking about covenant and Christ and Isaiah. So he’s drawing his stuff from these chapters, but actually, you get into Psalms, I’m talking about a foundation as well, Isaiah, often, you’ll find a lot of phrases around Isaiah that actually appeared first in the Psalms.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:24:22 So we get Psalms and Isaiah though, just barely finished Psalms, and now we’re in the middle of Isaiah, and they are the foundation for many of the images that are in the Book of Mormon via … So we get Psalms and Isaiah via Nephi and Jacob to all the rest of the Book of Mormon prophets.

Hank Smith: 00:24:38 I’m fascinated with this idea too that the Lord is saying, “There’s going to come a storm to sweep away the refuge that the leaders have laid out there.” Almost like he’s saying, “Just hang on and all that’ll be washed away and you’ll be left with the truth.”

John Bytheway: 00:24:56 Gosh, a refuge of lies. Wow.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:24:59 Yeah. Interestingly, and I don’t think this is the only interpretation of that, and I’ve never thought of this until you just said this, Hank, but as I think about it, when I think about God sending a storm that sweeps things away I think about, well, Enoch’s vision that’s in Moses 7, where he talks about God sweeping the earth with a flood, with the rains that come from above and, well, truth from above and, oh, righteousness from above and truth from below.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:25:23 Then President Benson interpreting that as flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. Then I think, “Well, what does expose the lies and give us the truth better than the Book of Mormon? So I don’t think it’s the only. I think current prophets are also another part of that flood. I think those are probably the greatest parts of that flood is the Book of Mormon and the prophets that we have today. They’re the only ways that we stick with the truth instead of being deceived or decepted, if we’re going to go with John’s phrase, but we’ll be decepted by all this garbage that’s floating around in the world. So yay for the Book of Mormon and prophets.

Hank Smith: 00:25:57 Yeah. Every six months we have a chance to clean out the refuse, the lies, the vomit around us.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:26:04 I suspect one day there’s some bigger storm that it takes the form of the Savior’s sword, right?

Hank Smith: 00:26:09 The Savior himself.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:26:11 Well, what if we spend just a little bit of time with chapter 29 as well because there’s some verses in here we talk about all the time that I think we can cast a little light on if that’s okay.

Hank Smith: 00:26:19 Okay. That sounds great.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:26:22 Let’s go to chapter 29 and it starts out with this interesting stuff, “Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt!” So there’s David’s city again, but it’s Jerusalem. “Add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:26:38 So first of all, let’s try and figure out what in the world he means by Ariel. There is a Hebrew word ariel, and it means hearth or hearthstone. So he might be saying, “Woe to your hearthstone,” but this word actually can be translated a different way. It’s in what we call in Hebrew its construct form, where you take two words and you put them together. So this might be ari el, and ari in construct form would be lion, and el is God. So this might be lion of God, lion of God, which by the way, David and his lion are thought of as the lion of God. So that makes a little more sense to me because we’re talking about the city of David and the city where David dwelt.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:27:16 Then he says, “Year after year, you can have sacrifices, but I’m still going to come and distress you because you’re not keeping the covenant, of course. I’m going to bring sorrow because you’re not keeping the covenant,” but that’s really what he’s saying, “Woe to you. You can do all the sacrifices you want, but when you’re not living righteously, distress is still going to come in the form of verse three, “And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.” He’s telling you, “Siege is coming.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:27:42 Now, of course in some ways this is God, but in some ways this is the Assyrians. The Assyrians are going to lay siege to Jerusalem. They’re definitely going to lay siege to Jerusalem and people are going to die from the famine and the sword and all sorts of other stuff in there.

Hank Smith: 00:27:57 Assyria doesn’t take Jerusalem, but they sure come close.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:28:01 They’re miraculously spared, but they will lay siege against them. Verse four, “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the dust, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.” That’s a verse we’re familiar with, right? How do we typically interpret that? I think it’s a great interpretation.

Hank Smith: 00:28:28 It’s the Book of Mormon. Yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:28:30 It makes sense, right? Partially because the golden plates, and Nephi helps us give it this interpretation. He really likes chapter 29. He draws on it a lot. So he’ll help us with this interpretation, but we think of the gold plates that are literally buried in the ground, and they come out of the ground and we have the voice of people who have died that speak to us and give us truth. It sounds familiar because it is truth. Wonderful, fantastic, absolutely accurate interpretation, but let’s ask ourselves, and this is one of the things that I hope that our audience will do all the time, how would Isaiah’s listeners have taken it? Again, if we can uncover that original context, this can really help us. So how would they have taken it in his day and in the next generation?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:29:12 So remember what happens when Jerusalem has laid siege. Sennacherib has come through and destroyed every major city and every defensed city with walls or anything in Judah. All of them destroyed. When Sennacherib destroys, he destroys. He burns like crazy. You guys know Jeff Chadwick, who is a colleague of ours, is an archeologist who’s been excavating in Egypt for 30 years. He was at a site one time where they hit this ash layer, and you do that as you’re excavating. If there’s been destruction there, you’ll hit a layer of ash where you’re like, “Okay, someone burned the city at this point historically.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:29:48 You can always tell when it’s Sennacherib because it’s more intense, it’s a bigger layer. That guy just burned, right? If you’re doing the chronology and you know the pottery and everything else, you can say, “Okay. Yeah. This is where we expect Sennacherib would fit chronologically and here it is,” but a guy came to visit this site, and as he’s coming, it’s another archeologist who had a lot of experience there, and as he’s coming and he hasn’t been there to see all this stratigraphy and the pottery and know the dating and stuff, so he can’t say, “Okay. This is where I should expect to see Sennacherib,” but he just comes up and he sees the ash layer and he says, “Oh, Sennacherib was here.” You can just tell.

Hank Smith: 00:30:20 Wow.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:30:20 That guy was so destructive that literally 2,700 years later an archeologist can walk up and see the destruction and say, “Oh, Sennacherib was here,” and he was. It was Sennacherib. He was right. That’s how destructive this guy is.

Hank Smith: 00:30:36 This guy that we talked about with Dr. Sears who was coming to Hezekiah with a message of, “I’ve taken everything else and I’m going to take you.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:30:46 That’s exactly right. So this is the guy who has gone through, and we’re talking about a city in Judah, this layer of destruction, he has gone through and burned those cities like that, and he kills all the people around and he does it often in unpleasant ways. He takes them to the next city that he’s going to act. So we have pictorial evidence of this because he carved it on his own palace.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:31:06 After he conquers Azekah, he goes to Lachish and he’s laying siege to Lachish, and he brings with them prisoners from Azekah outside of the walls while he’s laying siege. He’s impaling them. He’s flaying them. He’s cutting their hands and their feet off to scare everyone inside of Lachish so that they’ll just give up. I would guess he probably did the same thing at Jerusalem. I don’t know. It doesn’t talk about that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:31:30 So by the time he gets to Jerusalem, so many people have died, and a lot of those cities are never inhabited again. He has just devastated the countryside. So many people have died and people die in Jerusalem as well. Now, all of those people are low in the ground. They are low in the dust.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:31:49 By the time Hezekiah is getting people in Jerusalem to repent, there are already people in Judah elsewhere who are dying. Those people who are laid in the ground are speaking out of the dust to the people at Jerusalem and their deaths, their dying moldering bodies are telling them, “Destruction’s coming. You keep the covenant or this is what happens.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:32:11 I would guess that’s how in Hezekiah’s day and Isaiah’s day and in the generations thereafter, that’s how they interpreted this. We know about the people that died. We know this was real and they speak to us. The Northern kingdom was scattered and destroyed. We’ve got some of the people living here in our city in Jerusalem whose family members were killed in the Northern kingdom or scattered and destroyed and they’re speaking to us.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:32:35 So I would say that’s the original context for this. It’s not different than the Book of Mormon speaking to us. This is the Bible being a voice out of the ground speaking to us. I feel like this year this verse has been fulfilled more than ever before in those terms. I feel like that the Bible and our Israelite ancestors that we’re reading about are speaking to us out of the ground with a familiar spirit out of the dust. They’re coming to life again as it were for us, and we’re learning the lessons that they would have us learn from their lives.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:33:11 Out of the dust is an important phrase to me. I call my website that. I call almost everything I do that because that’s what I want is for us to learn from these people. I want us to be able to take the scriptures and have them come out of the dust and become real for us so that we can learn from them, from the Nephites, for sure, but also from the people in the Old Testament and the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants and whatever else. All of these people should be speech low out of the dust, and they should speak out of the ground, and we should learn from them.

John Bytheway: 00:33:45 I like the word familiar. It took me years to see the word family in there. This is our family familiar. We’re present-day Israel. Our family is talking to us.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:33:56 Very good, and there’s a cultural element in there as well that in the law of Moses, they keep getting after them and don’t seek for familiar spirits. You don’t want necromancers and so on because there’s a culture where you try and speak with someone who is a family member that you’re familiar with or someone else you’re familiar with, but largely family members. Some of this comes from Egypt because it’s a real thing in Egypt that they would write letters to the dead and ask the dead to come and intervene in their lives and try and have experiences with the dead, right?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:34:24 God doesn’t want that to happen in a false way. So that’s why he says you should kill necromancers and people who are telling you the witch at Endor that Saul uses. You should not use those people to try and interact with the people who have already died. That’s not the way to do it. There’s a right way to do it, and this is the right way.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:34:42 So there is a way to have a familiar spirit or a familiar voice come to you, and it’s to read the scriptures. It’s to read this and to let them speak to you and teach you and learn the lessons and don’t repeat their problems, don’t repeat their history. So I hope we’re learning from our Israelite ancestors about listening to the wrong voices, about worshiping more than one God, and whether that be the ideas of the world is our false god or whatever it is. We’ve got to learn from these familiar voices speaking to us out of the dust.

John Bytheway: 00:35:13 Thank you. I’ve heard critics of the Book of Mormon talk about a familiar spirit because one of the ways that phrase is used, which you just articulated, is for seance type of a thing, a familiar spirit, and this is using it in a more opposite type way, a positive way. This is our family talking to us. So I just wanted to clarify that because I’ve heard that as an anti-argument, “Oh, familiar spirit, that’s a seance.” No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Same words, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:35:43 Right. See, and that’s the thing is that what happens so often is that Satan takes a principle, a good principle of God and he gives it a satanic perversion, secret combinations instead of sacred covenants and so on. That’s just Satan’s MO. So that’s what we have going on here is that there is a way God wants us to learn from our ancestors, and it’s this way, from the scriptures, from temple work, from reading family history, that way, not by asking someone who works with Satan to try and contact someone on the other side of the veil.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:36:18 Now, do we think that people from the other side of the veil might come and contact us? Yeah. We’ve got lots of stories in our church history of God sending people to do that. It’s God sending people. It’s not us getting some weird person to try and make that interaction themselves, but the primary way is through the scriptures. I know I said this on the very first episode of this year with you guys, but I hope that we will think of the Old Testament as our family history. This is our family history. We’re reading about their history. Let’s learn from it. Let’s let them speak to us out of the dust.

Hank Smith: 00:36:51 This has been fantastic, Kerry. Later in 29, am I right in saying, is this Isaiah saying there’s going to come an army that thinks they’re going to beat us, but they’re going to wake up? Is that verses seven and eight? “The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.” Is that what he’s after here? Is that here comes the Assyrian army and they think they’re going to win, and then they’re going to wake up and they’re going to find out they weren’t winning ever?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:37:28 Yeah. They may have conquered for a moment, but not really. I think you’re right. Let’s read seven and eight. I think it can be given that historical context, and then it can be given some personal application as well. So as you said, “The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision, and it shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:38:02 So yes, Assyria will come and they will feel like they’ve conquered and they’ve got what they wanted, and then they’re going to find out they don’t have what they wanted, and it doesn’t work

Hank Smith: 00:38:12 Like a man who eats in a vision. He eats in his dreams and he wakes up and he’s like, “Oh, wait. That was just a dream.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:38:20 That’s right, and it’s going to happen with Babylon, it’s going to happen with Rome, it’s going to happen with all sorts of people. They’re like, “Hey, we conquered. We did this,” and then they’re going to find it doesn’t really get them what they want. This is true of everyone, not only who fights, and most specifically, anyone who fights against the people of God. There are people today who are fighting against us in all sorts of ways.

Hank Smith: 00:38:40 … and think they’re winning.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:38:41 Yeah, that’s right, but what they’re going to find is that the little victories they think they’re getting or that satisfaction that they’re hoping to get out of what they’re doing doesn’t really satisfy them. That speaks to a larger principle. There’s so many of us, the world tells us, “This is an important thing, and this is how you meet that need,” and you’ve heard this metaphor, I’m sure, but it’s like when you climb a ladder and you get to the top of that ladder and you find you’ve had it on the wrong wall. You cannot satisfy your soul with the things of the world. When you try to, it’s like you dreamt that you ate and you wake up and you’re still hungry. I think this is a profound lesson.

Hank Smith: 00:39:22 It is. I have this quote. This is April 2009, Elder Robert D. Hales, “In seeking to overcome debt and addictive behaviors, we should remember that addiction is the craving of the natural man and it can never be satisfied. It is an insatiable appetite. When we are addicted, we seek those worldly possessions or physical pleasures that seem to entice us, but as children of God, our deepest hunger and what we should be seeking is what the Lord alone can provide, his love.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:39:53 That’s exactly it. Yeah. So you remember that middle part where he said, “The fallen man craves that which …” Read that part again.

Hank Smith: 00:40:00 He said, “We should remember that addiction is the craving of the natural man and it can never be satisfied. It is an insatiable appetite.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:40:13 Yeah, and I think that’s true. Just anything having to do with the fallen man, what the fallen man craves cannot be satiated. It’s impossible because it doesn’t satisfy the soul. Get it again and again and again what you crave as the fallen man, but it doesn’t actually satisfy any of your real needs, and what we need is that which will satisfy it.

John Bytheway: 00:40:38 Yeah. It’s such a deception in that way. Yeah. What’s the other phrase? You can never have enough of what you don’t need.

Hank Smith: 00:40:45 Goes back to Jacob. Jacob said almost the exact same thing, “Why do you spend money for that which hath no worth nor labor for that which cannot satisfy?”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:40:56 Actually, he’s paraphrasing Isaiah when he talks about laboring for that, which is of no worth. I love this image though. I think it’s one of the more powerful images I’ve encountered, this idea of dreaming that you ate and you wake up still hungry. That’s what too many of us are doing.

Hank Smith: 00:41:13 I don’t use this as a hahaha verse, but I often think of it when I hear a critic of the church say the church is falling, it’s going down, and I think back to this verse, “Oh, you are in a dream where you think you’re winning and soon you will wake up and find that you weren’t ever winning at all.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:41:33 Yeah. In fact, I’ll use an example and try and be fairly vague because I don’t want to pick on someone too much, but I know of someone, a particular person, who doesn’t like some of the things I write about the book of Abraham and so has publicly tried to just say things about my scholarship and doesn’t have anything real to say. She just chooses things that actually aren’t true, but repeatedly says, “Okay. This scholarship is …” and repeats a series of things that aren’t true. It feels pretty happy in the moment with what she feels like she’s accomplished, and yet is one of the less happy people that I know overall.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:42:09 It makes me sad because she is trying to find happiness and going about it in a way that just doesn’t help and feels like it’s hurting us. It doesn’t hurt us, but it gives that quick little adrenaline rush with the crash after. That’s what the dream of eating is is that. So often, that’s what these addictive behaviors and all sorts of other things are. We feel the need for something and we get the quick adrenaline rush and then we have to wallow in the crash.

Hank Smith: 00:42:41 It’s empty.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:42:41 Yeah, and the crash after, and that’s what the world gives us. The vomitous ideas of the world give us no real substance to eat.

Hank Smith: 00:42:51 I had a close friend decided to leave the church. We stayed friends. He ended up returning, took some years, but he ended up returning for his comment was, “I was empty over there. I thought I would be full so I came back.” It was a story of redemption, but it was a sad story to hear.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:43:11 Yeah, but so glad for him because so many aren’t as wise as he was that they feel the emptiness but they never go back. Bless him for having made that choice.

John Bytheway: 00:43:21 I hope that kind of a story gives people hope. I have a friend whose daughter was wandering for a while. He noticed something in the Book of Mormon that I thought was so interesting that when the angel came in Mosiah 27 to Alma and the four sons of Mosiah, he’s mostly talking to Alma, he said, “Your father has prayed with much faith concerning the exact phrase that thou might just be brought to a knowledge of the truth.” It wasn’t he’s prayed with much faith concerning you that you’d come back to church. It was that you would come to a knowledge of the truth.

John Bytheway: 00:43:55 My friend used that language in his own prayer, and maybe that was a strange route for your friend, Hank, to go and discover how there’s nothing else out there, it’s so empty, but he did. He came to a knowledge of the truth, and I hope people will have hope if they have a loved one out there in that situation views what the angel said that Alma prayed for. They’ll come to a knowledge of the truth and you don’t give up, and maybe that prayer will be answered and they’ll come to a knowledge of the truth maybe in a way that you or they don’t expect.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:44:30 Maybe this allows us to circle back around to what we were talking about earlier with the idea that Isaiah keeps holding out this promise that there will be a remnant and that remnant will come back. Sometimes that’s a remnant whereas you’ve got all the house of Israel and many are destroyed, but a remnant is preserving that come back. Sometimes it’s a remnant of me. Hopefully what that means is that the natural man is being killed off in me, and what’s left after I’ve gone through all those painful things that’s paring away the natural man in me is the remnant that will come back, and the message of Isaiah is God always accepts that remnant back, always.

John Bytheway: 00:45:13 Love it.

Hank Smith: 00:45:14 Yeah. I doubt there’s anyone out there listening who is fighting on the opposite side, but the story does need to be told. You may feel like you are winning that somehow you’re damaging the work and you’re going to bring it down. The message of Isaiah 29:7&8 is no, you are not. No unhallowed hand can stop this work from progressing. What does Joseph Smith say? “Calumny may defame. Mobs may assemble, internet sites may pop up, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent. It is winning and it will continue to win.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:45:56 Amen. So let’s just keep going in chapter 29 a little bit, and we’ll just briefly recap this as he goes on to talk about in verse 10, “The Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered,” and 29 continues the thoughts of 28. These are the leaders to whom what the Lord is really teaching is gibberish. It’s smattering lips and a foreign tongue. That’s the leaders he’s talking to. So none of this makes sense to them.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:46:22 Then we get verse 11, “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, ‘Read this, I pray thee:’ and he saith, ‘I cannot; for it is sealed:’ And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, ‘Read this, I pray thee:’ and he saith, ‘I am not learned,'” but then he’s able to read it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:46:37 Now, of course we know the Book of Mormon interpretation of this, which is absolutely correct. Nephi alludes that this will happen, and then when Martin Harris goes to Charles Anthon and shows him some characters, we get a fulfillment of this in a couple of years, you’re going to review this story again. I think that’s absolutely a correct fulfillment of it, but if we keep going with that original context, I think we can see some more ways this applies to our life because what he is saying, if we keep with what we were talking about in 28 and these verses in 29, what he’s saying is that when you are full of the spiritual vomit of the world, and so you feel pretty good about yourself because you know so much and you’re full of this spiritual vomit, then all of these true words are sealed. They make no sense to you, but those who are humble enough to know that they need to learn from God, it will make sense to them.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:47:31 You remember when we were talking about 2 Nephi 9 and the Os and woes? One of the woes is woe unto the learned because he thinks he knows what he’s doing. They think they’re wise, but to be learned is good if you harken into the councils of God. I think, again, that Jacob had these verses in mind. This is the learned can’t learn, and the one who’s not learned does learn. So again, Jacob just has another way of saying what Isaiah is here. I think it’s just more commentary in Isaiah. So I really do think that Jacob is drawing on 28 and 29 as he talks about this. In my commentary, I didn’t talk about that. I wish I would’ve done that. Maybe in the next edition.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:48:07 This is important stuff. Again, I think we can understand that Book of Mormon interpretation, but we can apply it to ourselves better if we think of that original context as well that, “Huh, which one am I? Because obviously, I’m not Charles Anthon and I’m not Joseph Smith, but I might be some of the folks in Israel who think they know what they’re talking about. Let’s be clear. I mean, I have a PhD in this stuff. I’m in the at risk category according to Jacob. I should really stop and ask myself. Am I so sure I know what I’m talking about that I don’t listen to the prophet, that I don’t listen to the spirit that it’s sealed to me and I can’t learn precept upon precept, line upon line, it’s gibberish to me or am I humble enough to say, ‘You know what? I’m going to learn whatever God’s going to teach me today,’ and if it goes against what I thought, and if it goes against my training, I’m still going to learn from God. Does it go against what the world is saying to me? I’m still going to learn from God.'”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:49:04 Those are some important lessons we can learn from this. When we are learning that way, and then we can avoid verse 13 and we can move to verse 14. Verse 13 is, “Wherefore the Lord said, ‘For as much as this people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.'” Doesn’t that fit in so perfectly with what we’ve been talking about?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:49:26 So many people who have been so influenced by what the world teaches, there are a thousand ways this can be manifest, but we’re saying that we’re following Christ and probably in their hearts they think they’re following Christ but not really because what they’re really doing is their heart has been given to the ideas of the world. So we want to avoid being those people and instead be what we see in verse 14, “Therefore will I proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:49:54 Now, we don’t want to be that for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. We want to be part of the marvelous work and the wonder, which we know one very real specific and maybe most important fulfillment of that is the Book of Mormon, but it’s any truth that is being taught by God. It’s any line upon line, precept upon precept that the spiritually sensitive can understand. That’s the marvelous work, and it is going forth, and we want to be part of it. That’s the gathering of Israel. That’s how it happens.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:50:23 We want to be part of what President Nelson tells us is the most important cause on earth is we want to be this marvelous work to get people to quit listening to the world. Quit getting most of your information from social media and online sources and whatever else and make more time for Christ so you can understand the things by the spirit, so they make sense to you instead of foolishness to you, they’re not gibberish to you, and then we can really come unto Christ. Oh, I wish we could all be doing better at that.

Hank Smith: 00:50:50 Yup. I’ve already said it once, but I’m going to say it again because it bears repeating up. 1 Corinthians 2, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolish, foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” That’s exactly what we’re talking about here. It’s not that they won’t hear them. It’s that there’s not even a comprehension.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:51:14 Yeah. It’s beyond their ability to understand. It’s a foreign tongue a stammering lips. Now, let’s jump to another part of Isaiah that I’m sure you’ll cover later, but let’s just allude to it. When I divide chapters of Isaiah and say, “This chapter is about this,” and so on, I always put chapter 58 as a turning point, and it’s because this is where they start to really keep the Sabbath. They’re really going to keep the fast, those kinds of things, but it’s in chapter 58 where he says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:51:40 That’s the reason for this. What God is trying to teach us is beyond our natural capacity to understand. The only way we can understand it is if we have the spirit with us because we’re just playing as mortal beings. We’re not capable of it. You can only understand it if the spirit is with you, and that’s why it’s foolishness unto you or it’s [foreign language 00:52:04] because our spiritual vomit made us spiritually unclean, so we can’t have the spirit with us. If the spirit’s not with you, things that are beyond your ability to understand are going to remain beyond your ability to understand, but if the spirit is with you, your capacity has increased and you can understand line upon line, precept upon precept.

John Bytheway: 00:52:25 I think with everything we’ve been saying here, I love the way President Nelson said it. He’s not saying don’t be aware. We’re not hiding away from the world. You know what’s going on in the world, but if most of your information, if your reliance is on that instead of your relying on Christ and focusing on Christ, and what else did President Nelson say? Your happiness has more to do with the focus of your lives than the circumstances of your lives.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:52:50 Yes.

John Bytheway: 00:52:54 We’re going to be in the world, but we’re not going to be of it. We’re going to be aware, but our focus and our reliance and our devotion, our loyalty is going to be to Christ.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:53:01 Amen.

Hank Smith: 00:53:02 Section 93, both of you will know this. The glory of God is intelligence or in other words, light and truth. This is verse 37. Light and truth forsake that evil one. So the more you get involved in light and truth, the less desirable the vomit of the world is for you. It’s just not. It becomes less and less attractive. He says, “But the wicked one cometh,” this is verse 39, “and taketh away light and truth through disobedience.”

Hank Smith: 00:53:33 None of us is immune. The light and truth that we have can be taken away through disobedience. If we stop listening, if we pick up a new vomit voice and start filling our life with it, then the things of God that used to seem so beautiful to us will all of a sudden be gibberish, be foolishness.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:53:53 It’s so true. When you say that I think of, I remember Wendy Watson Nelson, Sister Nelson, talking about President Nelson and things that she saw in him. I think that she was saying they were even heightened a little bit when he became prophet, but that she’d saw in him anyway, and one of them was that he can’t stand contention. If there’s even a little bit of contention on the TV, he has to turn it off. I think that ties in with his talk, where he recently told us, “Please get rid of contention in your lives.” I actually have seen it. I’ve just been able to see President Nelson in-person a little bit, where some people were talking with him and there were some teenagers. They teased each other a little bit, and you could tell he just moved on. He didn’t want to be part of that teasing. Even though it was gentle and not bad, it was just enough contention. He just wanted to have nothing to do with that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:54:38 I think that’s an example of this idea where he’s so full of light that he forsakes stuff that many of us would feel okay about. I found that even with myself. Shows that I used to think were fine in terms of violence, I hope that I’m continually becoming a little bit more godly, and there are things that I thought were fine a few years ago that I look at it I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, turn that off. I can’t stand that,” but as you said, the opposite of that happens as well.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:55:04 So again, we get these cohesive units. So we talked about 24 through 27. I’d say 28 through 30, you can make an argument for after that, but at least 28 through 30, you get this same thing. You get this forsake the garbage of the world and only turn to God, and if you don’t, then the things of God are going to seem like garbage to you, which is exactly what you just read in section 93, I think, Hank, is that exact same thing. So there’s some wonderful verses in chapter 30 that I think highlight the same thing that keep talking about the same themes. These three chapters just have the same themes said in lots of different ways.

John Bytheway: 00:55:39 Well, Samuel the Lamanite just talks about if a prophet comes among you and says this, says, “Do whatever your heart desires,” you’ll hold him up. You’ll say he’s a prophet. You’ll feed him. You’ll clothe them in the finest stuff, but if a prophet comes and tells you about your sins, you’ll say he’s a false prophet and everything. It’s footnoted here. Let’s do nine and 10. This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord, and there’s a difference between will not and not. This is choosing not, right?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:56:11 Good. Do you hear the echos of chapter 28 in there, right? Because remember law, that commandment, that line because the root for [foreign language 00:56:19] is commandment, right? So you’ve got this idea that they are still choosing not to listen to what God’s trying to teach them line upon line, precept upon precept. So anyway, sorry. Keep going.

John Bytheway: 00:56:30 Oh, thank you. Yes. So verse 10, which say to the seers, “See not,” and what is the seer? One who sees.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:56:39 “Stop seeing.”

John Bytheway: 00:56:40 Yeah, “Stop doing that. Stop being what you are,” which say to the seer, “See not,” and to the prophets, “Prophesy not unto us right things. Speak unto us smooth things. Prophesy deceits,” and that is what Helaman was saying. If a prophet comes among you and says this and says, “Do whatever your heart desires,” I think that’s what Samuel the Lamanite says. Oh, I like this guy. That’s your thought leader right there. Right, Kerry? If a prophet comes and warns you about your sins, you’ll want to cast him out to what Samuel the Lamanite says. I like Isaiah 30. What do you think are smooth things? Things that aren’t too hard, things that you’re doing, all’s well in Zion, you’re fine, don’t worry about it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:57:26 Well, that’s the smoothest easiest thing ever, “Okay. I am what I am.” Do you remember when King Ahab wanted to go to battle and Jehoshaphat was with him and they say, “Well, let’s get some prophets to tell us.” So they get all these prophets who were telling them, “Yeah, go do it. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great.” Jehoshaphat says, “Wait, isn’t there a prophet of Jehovah around?” and Ahab says, “Yeah, there’s this guy Micaiah, but I don’t like him. He always says bad stuff about me so I don’t call him anymore.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:57:52 That’s exactly what we’re talking about. He wanted someone who would tell him what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want someone who would tell him, “Okay, that’s not so good. We love you, but you’re still going to have to keep the commandments,” kind of a thing. I think we see that in our day, and that gets to where you’re saying to the seer don’t see and to the prophet don’t prophesy. Even what we get in verse 11 and 12, “Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, ‘Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon,’ therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall.”

Hank Smith: 00:58:26 It’s going to come down.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:58:27 You’re going to fall because of this, and note the progression. You lie and you want these false prophets, these false thought leaders, and then because of what you believe from them, you don’t want to hear from real prophets and seers, and then you don’t even want Christ. You don’t want the Holy One of Israel. That’s the progression. Spend too much of your time getting your information from non-Christ sources, and pretty soon you don’t want Christ sources and then you don’t want Christ. That’s a bad place to be.

John Bytheway: 00:59:02 That’s a lie upon lie, decept upon decept kind of progression.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:59:06 Exactly.

John Bytheway: 00:59:07 You’re dwindling in unbelief. Yeah. You’re going carefully down to hell type of a thing.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 00:59:13 That’s profoundly said.

Hank Smith: 00:59:14 Listen to this from April 2014 general conference, Elder Holland, “Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who don’t demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods, who not only don’t rock the boat, they don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle and tell us to run along and pick marigolds. Talk about man creating God in his own image.”

Hank Smith: 00:59:46 Kerry, you said earlier that there are people who say, “Oh, Jesus said love everyone. Jesus said this.” Sometimes I think, “Did you read the New Testament?” Jesus has standards. He has boundaries and standards that are so difficult to reach about forgiveness, about morality, and just a little one, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” That was kind of one that gets tossed out the window because Jesus said love everyone. Yes. Jesus said love everyone, but Jesus said a lot more than that. He had a lot more to say than that.

John Bytheway: 01:00:21 If we love God, we’re concerned about his commandments. It’s tough, isn’t it, Hank and Kerry? I think it was Elder Christofferson who said, “Well, God doesn’t want any of us back just the way we are.”

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:00:35 That’s right. He wants us better. That’s exactly right. He doesn’t want us to be satisfied with just the way we are. Think about it. Do you want a parent or do you want a coach? Let’s use a coaching analogy. Do you want a coach who just says, “Okay. You’re good enough”?

Hank Smith: 01:00:49 You’re doing great.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:00:50 “We don’t need to practice. We’re not going to help you reach greater potential. You’re good the way you are,” right? No one wants that. As you say all of this about the standards, and I don’t know that they’ve read the New Testament, again, this helps me circle back around to some of what we were talking about earlier. I’ve heard lots of people who say, “Well, the God of the Old Testament is a God of justice and the God of the New Testament is a God of mercy.” I think you didn’t read either book.

Hank Smith: 01:01:12 Yeah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:01:13 Right? What in the world? You chose the two verses you didn’t like in the Old Testament and two verses you didn’t like in the New Testament because you’ve got plenty of both in both. As we said earlier, we want both the justice and the mercy because the justice gets rid of those who are oppressing us unjustly, and the mercy makes it so that if we’re trying to keep the covenant, we’re going to be okay.

John Bytheway: 01:01:39 That’s back to Alma telling Corianton, “Let his justice and his mercy and his long suffering have full sway in your heart.” Get the whole picture of all of those attributes that he has and look at all of this. It’s a rigorous gospel. What we’re being asked to do is we can’t do it without leaning on Christ.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:01:59 Yeah, and with that, trust in his sword.

Hank Smith: 01:02:02 Kerry, this has been fantastic today. I think this is the fourth time you’ve been on our podcast. Thank you for not tiring of us.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:02:08 Yeah. You’re getting desperate.

Hank Smith: 01:02:09 Yes.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:02:10 I can tell you’re getting desperate.

John Bytheway: 01:02:11 We’re fortunate.

Hank Smith: 01:02:14 We would encourage everyone to go back and listen to some of Kerry’s previous episodes. They’re just wonderful. They really are. At the end of this episode, Kerry, why don’t we just do major takeaways from just Isaiah in general? I know how much you love Isaiah, and I know how much a lot of our listeners don’t love Isaiah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:02:35 They’re going to love him by the end of this year. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:02:38 They want to. So let’s talk major takeaways from not only this section, but Isaiah in general. What do you love about him? Get our listeners pumped up to study Isaiah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:02:48 Yeah, I’m happy to do that. In fact, that’s why I titled my commentary, Learning to Love Isaiah. That’s what I want. I want them not just to study it, which we’re commanded to do or to search their words, I want us to love Isaiah. I think that really between podcasts like yours and all the tools and resources that are out there to help people, I think people are going to be loving Isaiah by the time we’re done with this.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:03:12 Maybe a couple thoughts that can help with that. As I’ve studied Isaiah, and sometimes I get lost in the little thicket, when you’re doing a verse by verse commentary, you’re looking at each little teeny verse, and every now and then I’d stop and say, “Okay. Let’s look at the big picture. Let’s look at how do these verses fit together, how do these chapters fit together, how does the book fit together.” In doing that, I actually discovered chiasmus. Chiasmus, I don’t think anyone had ever seen before. I think my commentary is the first place it’s published. That goes from chapter 40 to chapter 57.

Hank Smith: 01:03:43 Wow.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:03:43 Huge chiasmus, and the central chapter, so in a chiasmus, the central point is the most important point, and the central chapters are actually the ones Nephi loves is chapter 48 and 49. These chapters, and the chiasmus as a whole is about covenant and redemption, and the central chapters there are that you’re in trouble if you don’t make and keep a covenant and get redeemed, but if you do make and keep a covenant, God will send servants, and especially a servant that will redeem you. That’s the overarching theme of that chiasmus is that the covenant is available to everybody, but you have to make that covenant and do your best to keep it, and then redemption is available.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:04:28 As I realized that that was the center of that chiasmus, I started to look for what are the major themes of Isaiah. I noticed it’s redemption. Then recently, I was actually working on a little booklet that I think should come out sometime in the next year with covenant communications on the covenant. It’s a small booklet where I’m trying to focus on how do we recognize the blessings that are promised to Israel like President Nelson asked us to and what does that teach us about what the covenant path actually looks like.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:04:55 As part of that, I did an exercise that you remember just a little while ago I said that the two major phrases that alert us about this relationship with God that’s created in the covenant, and that’s the primary purpose of the covenant is to have that relationship with God. The two major phrases are that God is our God and we are his people. So I started to look for every time in the scriptures that it talked about his people or my people, say either a prophet saying his people or God or Christ saying my people and started to just discuss what are the promises that are in there. If I saw the same promise more than once, then I’d put that reference again and again.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:05:33 The longest one, the one that had the most references was the phrase redeem. It’s the phrase that Isaiah, especially in Isaiah, but it’s true all throughout the scriptures but especially in Isaiah, God wants to redeem us, and he will preserve us and redeem us. That’s why he sends his son, and it’s why he made a covenant, and it’s why he’s doing everything he does because he wants to redeem us so that we can come back to be with him, as we said, in a higher state, but we can have that closer relationship with him because we’ve been redeemed.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:06:04 If you look for that theme in Isaiah, the theme of God sending servants to help us be redeemed, and that he will never stop working with us until we are redeemed, and that when we receive that redemption we will receive joy, if you look for that theme, you’ll find it all over in Isaiah. There is more about praising and joy in Isaiah than I would’ve guessed before I started really studying Isaiah, but it’s all over the place. There’s also plenty about warning of consequences. If you don’t repent, but there’s plenty about joy, but it’s the joy of the redeemed, as we read here, because we wait. We waited on Christ because we kept the covenant. We did what we needed to, and then that redemption came, which brought joy with it.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:06:48 If we’ll look for those themes, I think we’ll have Isaiah unfold to us in a joyful way. In fact, Nephi says one of the reasons he gives us the words of Isaiah is because he wants us to not only delight in them, but delight for all men. We really will delight for everyone because we see the joy and the redemption that’s available for all of us, and that’s what Isaiah’s about.

Hank Smith: 01:07:11 Kerry, wouldn’t you say also to be patient? You’re not going to get every word the first time through. We have been doing this a long time. Just keep coming back to Isaiah.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:07:21 Yeah. So maybe I’ll talk a little bit about the process of writing this commentary. As I was writing it, I did it over a period of years because it takes a long time, right? So I do maybe a chapter and then come back and so on. I was fortunate our department chair at the time, Dana Pike, I went to and I said, “I’m working on this commentary and I really think I could do it better if I was teaching the class at the same time.” So for the couple years I was working on that, unfortunately, that got me into this rotation where I teach it regularly now. I’m very happy about that, but for the years I was working on it, I was teaching as well so that I could take the stuff I was learning as I wrote the commentary into the classroom, and then I would learn together with my students and see what they understood and what they did, and I’d bring it back and incorporate it into the commentary.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:08:01 What I found is that each time I went through it because that helped me to go through each chapter again and again because I was teaching it this semester and again the next semester and again the next, there were more things that I was learning. I learned something different each time, but what’s more, I would say, write down your notes. I’ll just confess that as we were doing this together, I was reading in my commentary. It has the chapter or the verses on one side and the commentary on adjacent column. I was reading from the verses here, but I was doing it because I know there are tons of things that I once learned that I don’t remember now, but I wrote them down in here. So this was my cheat sheet as we’re going through, my own commentary. I have to look at what I said.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:08:42 In fact, I’ve heard people read something about Isaiah and I was like, “That’s really good,” and I’ve gone up and asked them, “Where did you get that from?” “That’s your commentary.” “Oh, that was me. Good. Well, must have been inspired that day,” but there’s so much in here. There’s no way you can get it all in one go through and there’s no way you can remember it all. So write down what you learned, but also look to learn something new each time and be happy with whatever you did learn even if you only understood a little teeny bit of a verse this time. That’s fine. Next time you’ll get some more and next time some more. If you got something good out of it, that’s great, and write it down so you can remember it next time.

John Bytheway: 01:09:18 That’s your line upon line right there.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:09:20 Yeah, it is.

John Bytheway: 01:09:22 Hey, I have a quick question. Kerry, you talked about the you will be my God, and I was just thinking some of Jesus’, the resurrected Christ’s, first word to Mary, “I ascended to my father and your father and to my God and your God.” Was that the same kind of a thing happening there?

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:09:42 I think so. I think because, again, what that phrase designates is the special relationship. So there’s a different relationship for covenant holders than there is for non-covenant holders. That’s why we are his people and he’s our God because we created formally and officially that relationship, and once we’re in that relationship with each other, it just keeps increasing just like any relationship you have with your spouse. The more time you spend with each other in that close relationship, the more you become like each other, the more you understand each other, the closer you draw to each other. So it denotes a relationship, but Christ has an even greater relationship.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:10:17 So I think that’s what he’s saying there, “He is your God, Mary, you’re a covenant person. You’ve got that relationship with him. He’s my God too, and I’m not saying our God because my relationship with him is different than yours,” but note what he had just prayed for a few days before that in chapter 17, the great intercessory prayer. Just right before he dies, he prays that the relationship he has with God, everyone will be able to enjoy. He basically after the book of John teaches, he teaches in almost every chapter of the book of John something about his relationship with God. You’ll find it. I think there are only two chapters where you will find some verses where Christ talks about his relationship with God, but there at the end, he invites us into that relationship. So when he talks to Mary, there’s still a difference between the relationship, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. At some point, we’ll have the same relationship with God that Christ does because of Christ.

John Bytheway: 01:11:13 Love it. I was going to comment too that that theme of redemption, I love to point out we were trying to figure out what is the phrase used to describe the plan of salvation most in the Book of Mormon and it’s the plan of redemption.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:11:29 Then I think the next one is plan of happiness. So it’s that redemption and joy.

John Bytheway: 01:11:34 Students love the plan of happiness. When I ask them, “What’s your favorite?” they love plan of happiness. Then when you read, who used the phrase plan of redemption? It’s the most Alma and the sons of Mosiah, who experienced being knocked flat and I think, “Oh, that’s pretty cool how they would focus on their redemption part of it.” I guess salvation Savior is in there as well, but I just always liked that.

Dr. Kerry Muhlestein: 01:11:59 Right, but they certainly knew and understood that they needed redemption. I would agree with you. It’s the major theme and then it leads to happiness or joy.

Hank Smith: 01:12:10 Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Muhlestein, for being with us again. I actually want to finish today by reading from our Come Follow Me manual. I think it just has a wonderful paragraph in this week’s lesson. It says, “Isaiah had a message of hope. Even though the prophesied destruction eventually did come upon these kingdoms, Isaiah foresaw a chance for restoration and renewal. The Lord would invite his people to return to him. He would make the parched ground to become a pool and the thirsty land spring of water. He would perform a marvelous work and wonder, restoring to Israel the blessings he had promised them. Neither Isaiah nor anyone else alive at that time lived to see this marvelous work, but we are seeing its ultimate fulfillment today. In fact, we are part of it.”

Hank Smith: 01:13:02 We want to thank Dr. Kerry Muhlestein for being with us again today. This won’t be the last time we see him. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and we hope all of you will join us next week. We have another lesson on Isaiah coming up on FollowHIM.

Hank Smith: 01:13:22 We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.