“Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the
Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” (Isaiah 40:1,2)
Imagine
having in your family a history of suffering and humanity’s hatred. The Jewish
nation has been hated and persecuted from the time of their dispersion into the
world. Isaiah prophesied all the calamities that would befall them from the
time of their scattering to the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah who would
come at the end of time.
Judah
was to be sent through the ‘furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10) for rejecting
her King when He came among them. A look at Jewish history and present-day
circumstances tells us that this nation is still going through that furnace but
one day soon her sentence will be served and her penalty will be paid. Think
for a minute of the furnace of the Holocaust. Imagine having that in your
family history. However, the most extreme heat of the furnace is yet to be felt
when the nations of the earth join against the nation of Israel:
“The
bankrupt nations, envying the wealth of the sons of Judah, will seek a pretext
to make war upon the, and will invade the ‘holy land’ to ‘take a prey and a
spoil’……At the crisis of their fate, when the hostile troops of several nations
are ravaging the city and all the horrors of war are overwhelming the people of
Jerusalem, He [the Christ] will set his feet upon the Mount of Olives, which
will cleave and part asunder at his touch.
“Attended
by a host from heaven, he will overthrow and destroy the combined armies of the
Gentiles, and appear to the worshipping Jews as the mighty Deliverer and Conqueror
so long expected by their race; and while love, gratitude, awe, and admiration
swell their bosoms, the Deliverer will show them the tokens of his crucifixion
and disclose himself as Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had reviled and whom their
fathers put to death. Then will unbelief depart from their souls, and ‘the
blindness in part which has happened unto Israel’ be removed”. (Elder Charles
W. Penrose, “The Second Advent”, Millenial Star, 10 Sept 1859, pp
582-83).
Then
will the warfare be over and her iniquity pardoned but the immediately
preceding devastation of Judah will be colossal. One-tenth of Jerusalem will be
destroyed, and 7000 men will be slain (Revelation 11:13). We are talking here
about fathers and brothers and husbands…..and families left destitute without
male protection.
“So
great will be the devastation that for seven years Israel will be able to live
off the spoils of war left behind (see Ezekiel 39:8-10). It will take seven
months to bury the dead, and thereafter burial teams will search out the
remaining bodies in an attempt to cleanse the land. Isaiah said that the Lord
“hath delivered them to the slaughter…and the mountains shall be melted with
their blood (Isaiah 34:2-3).” (Old
Testament Student Manual Book 2, Enrichment I, p 295)
Of
equal interest to the scripture of comfort and promise of deliverance is the
third verse in Isaiah 40 which speaks of “the voice of him that crieth in the
wilderness”. This is a dual prophecy which speaks of John the Baptist who
prepared the way for the Saviour’s first advent and who has had a role in such
like preparation for the second advent.
Luke
quoted Isaiah 40:3-5 which are clearly millennial in application. When Joseph
Smith revised Luke’s passage, he added five verses that also apply to the
Second Coming which clearly identify the Saviour for whom the forerunner would
again prepare the way (see JST Luke 3:5-9).
This
forerunner of the last days was to make possible the preaching of the gospel to
the Gentiles and to gather together those who are lost, who are of the
sheepfold of Israel. John the Baptist came to this forerunner, Joseph Smith, on
May 15, 1829, to restore the Aaronic Priesthood in preparation for the
preaching of the gospel and the gathering of Israel:
“The
Lord declared, through one of his prophets, that before his second coming a
messenger should be sent to prepare the way and make it straight…..John, the
messenger who came to prepare the way before the Lord in the former
dispensation, also came in this dispensation as a messenger to Joseph Smith….I
maintain that Joseph Smith was the messenger whom the Lord sent to prepare the
way before him. He came, and under direction of holy messengers laid the
foundation for the kingdom of God and of this marvelous work and a wonder that
the world might be prepared for the coming of the Lord.” (President Joseph
Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:193-95)
When in the clouds of glory You appear
To save Judah distressed and all alone
Your mercy will flow from the dreaded
hill
Where in times past they crucified
their own.
When on the Mount of Olives suddenly
you meet
They will know You
And accept salvation at Your feet.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
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