Isaiah for Mormons Audio

Hello all. I finally figured out how to make Isaiah for Mormons into a downloadable mp3 podcast kind of thing so you can listen to it in on the go. After all, the point of this was to save you time compared to having to sit down and read through a commentary. All you have to do is go to the link at archive.org and download it.

https://archive.org/details/IsaiahForMormons

Isaiah for Mormons Chapter 4

Here's chapter 4 of Isaiah for Mormons. The text comes from https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/isa?lang=eng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWgF-Ax6OVY

Isaiah for Mormons Chapter 3

Here's chapter 3 of Isaiah for Mormons. The text comes from https://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/isa?lang=eng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BWqEDKSvnc

Isaiah for Mormons Chapter 2

Alright everybody, here's the next chapter. As always, the text comes from Lds.org.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS65qY5q6yc

Isaiah for Mormons Chapter 1

This is something that I initially thought of many years ago after a conversation with Bentley. Another friend, Travis, mentioned this to me a while ago as well, and when my wife told me I should do it, I finally decided to make it happen. The text comes from LDS.org. Enjoy the first installment of Isaiah for Mormons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCb8XFMIm3M 

Walking Upright

            If you are reading this blog, then I can assume that you can read, have access to a computer, and have an internet connection, making you better off than the vast majority of people who have ever lived on the planet. With the exception of a blight that hit my fruit crop this last year, the vast majority of my problems are first world problems. This can sometimes make it difficult to relate to people in the Old Testament. I have never been a slave, I don’t depend on rainfall for most of my food, and the odds of my home being invaded by a foreign power are very slim. But modernity has brought with it its own set of challenges, challenges that are very real when you are in the middle of them, even though they may seem laughable to people who had to share their farmland with lions. So, here follow a few thoughts about dealing with first world problems. 

            “And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.”

(Leviticus 26:11–13)   

 

            Since we don’t live in tents anymore, God pitching his tent (setting up his tabernacle) among us seems odd. Today we build houses for God, and consecrate them to Him. But the simple fact that God wants to live with us should make us take notice. Why would a cosmically powerful, cosmically good being want to live among His fallen creations? Really, in a cosmic sense, His soul should abhor us as fallen beings, He should refuse to associate with beings that habitually break His commandments, and yet He doesn’t. The only explanation I can come up with for this behavior is that He really loves us. Not in a trite, superfluous sense, but in a He’s-willing-to-get-His-hands-dirty sense. He’s willing to help us slog through the mire of life for no other reason but love. 

            God wants to walk among us, so He can be our God, and we can be His people, and I think He wants this in the most anthropomorphic way possible. He wants us to walk in His paths and talk with Him in the way that we would talk to our most intimate friends. In the modern world, it is difficult to de-distract ourselves long enough to really walk with God, but that is what He still asks of us. He wants us to be His close, personal, friend, not a passing acquaintance. He wants us to put ourselves in a state where He really can “walk among us” so we can feel His presence, even in the most mundane of moments. 

            We were never slaves in Egypt, but I have sometimes felt like a slave to my problems. I have been a slave to my fears, I have been a slave to hopelessness, I have been a slave to the constant list of things to do that weighs upon us in the modern world. These are problems that eventually pass, but they feel so real when you are in the middle of them. In John 11, when Lazarus died, Jesus came to visit his sisters, Mary and Martha. When he spoke with them, He knew their problems were going to be solved in just a few minutes; He was literally on His way to the tomb to bring Lazarus back to life. Yet He didn’t say to them, “Cheer up, your problems will be over soon.” He wept. He acknowledged that their problem was painfully real, and wept with them. And when we, today, find ourselves enslaved to our temporary problems, however small, we can be assured that He will patiently listen to our pleadings, and then help us to maintain perspective. (D & C 121:1-7)

            In ancient Egypt, slavery involved bowing down under the burden of heavy brick yokes. These were curved sticks that went on a person’s neck and shoulders with ropes on both ends so they could carry containers full of mud bricks to the jobsite. Thus, when the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt, they would have spent much of their time hunched over under their burdens, sometimes working all day without ever walking erect. However, when God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, he said, “I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.” 

            Sometimes we find ourselves bowed down under our burdens today, weighed down by our problems or our to-do list, spending our days with our eyes on the ground, stumbling towards our goals without the confidence to look up. Just as God broke the yoke of the Israelites, so He can relieve us of our burdens, reminding us of our identity as His children, and giving us the confidence to “go upright.” 

When you find yourself weighed down under whatever form of slavery you are in, remember that you are a child of God and that He can relieve you of your burdens and help you walk upright.  

                       

           

Hearts

"And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt ... be turned into another man."
1 Samuel 10:6

In the past, I often found myself wishing that I could be like somebody else. I want to be as smart as this person, or as cool as that person, or as likeable as that other guy. Inevitably, this line of thought led me to despair. How could I ever be as awesome as the people around me?

After many years of struggling with this, I came to the stark realization: I couldn't. It was literally impossible for me to be the kind of person I wanted to be. I came to realize unequivocally that no matter how hard I tried, I could never do the kinds of things I wanted with my life.

The realization was at the same time deeply disturbing and utterly liberating. I became keenly aware of my own worthlessness but realized, for the first time in my life, that since it was utterly impossible for me to achieve my goals, I could finally stop trying. I could actually rest for the first time in my life.

You would think that this conclusion would have made me feel hopeless, but the exact opposite happened. I had never felt more hopeful in all my life. I realized that I could never achieve my goals, and that I didn't have to. I simply had to let God turn me into another man.

This new man would be able to achieve all the goals I never could. He would be the kind of person I liked spending 24 hours a day with. He would be the kind of man I could look up to. He was the kind of man I would want to be friends with. After years of beating my head against the wall trying to do things by myself, I finally just allowed God to turn me into someone else.

But who was this other man I had been replaced with? How did he get here? The answer is found in 1 Samuel 10.

In 1 Samuel 9 we meet this guy named Saul. He's a pretty cool guy who's just minding his own business, trying to find his dad's donkeys who have gotten lost. However, Saul is apparently getting pretty sick of looking for these donkeys and decides to throw in the towel and go home. His servant, however, has one last idea. He knows there's a seer in one of these towns close by, and figures that if they find the seer, he can tell them where to find the donkeys. So they round up some loose change (apparently it was customary to tip seers back in the day) and go to find him.

As it turns out, the seer they are looking for is Samuel, and God has told him that Saul and his servant are coming to see him. When they finally show up, Samuel is waiting for them (he even has food ready for them) and informs Saul that he is going to be the next captain over the armies of Israel. He then tells him that he will run into some prophets on the way home who will be prophesying, but then "the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man." Apparently, everything happens just the way Samuel said it would, because in verse nine it says, "And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day." 

As I see it, this verse give us the "who" and the "how" for becoming a new person. The only way to be turned into another person, to be replaced by another person, is through the Holy Ghost. In fact, the person that replaces the "old you" is actually two people: a combination of the best elements of your old self and the Holy Ghost. This is the new person that we can be changed into. It is this that allows us to do and be so much more than we were before, because we aren't doing it by ourselves anymore. When you have become one with the Holy Ghost, one of the three most powerful beings in the universe, even the tough things we have to do don't seem so tough anymore.

The way to achieve this is simple: the Holy Ghost gives us another heart. He can change our desires and make us into new people. It is this process that allows us to become infinitely better, and to be the people we want to be. The process may not be easy, and it is reversible (Saul seems to have rejected this new heart pretty quickly) but I know that this is how regular people can become better people and be who we want to be. 

Perhaps it's time to allow ourselves to be turned into another person.