The following transcript is intended to aid in your study. However, while we try to go through the transcript, our transcripts are primarily computer-generated and often contain errors. Please forgive the transcripts’ imperfections.

===

[00:00:00] Tammy Uzelac Hall: What comes to mind when you think of a good theme song? So I looked up the top 100 TV theme songs of all time, and I was shocked because Sesame Street, number 50, Law and Order was 48, and in my home, that's number one. Uh, Brady Bunch, number two, but guess what the number one theme song was? The Jeffersons, and I can guarantee my friend, Amy Whitmore is singing that theme song right now.

Aren't you? Oh, she loves that theme song. Now listen, our study of second Nephi chapters 11 through 19 is all about themes and there's a lot of them, but the most important one in Isaiah's writings is the theme of Jesus Christ. So we hope that by the time we are done today. Any one of the themes in second Nephi will become as recognizable to you as Brady Bunch, Sesame Street, or the Jefferson's theme song or whatever theme song, you know, and love.

Welcome to the Sunday on Monday study group. And this is exciting.

[00:00:59] Kerry Muhlestein: This is a special joint broadcast with the scriptures are real, where we're happy to join together to help us all understand Isaiah better.

[00:01:06] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh my gosh, this is going to be so fun. That was Kerry Muhlestein. I'm Tammy Uzelac Hall. And now if anyone's new to either one of our study groups, follow the links in our descriptions and it's going to explain how you can best use our podcast to enhance your come follow me study.

Just like my friend, Danette McComber. Hello Danette. I just had to say a shout out to you. Now here's the best thing about our study group is each week we're joined by two of my friends. So it's always a little bit different, but this week I have, as you heard. Kerry Muehlstein and Kerry and I have some pretty exciting news.

That's why we joined efforts right now. Kerry, what's happening right now?

[00:01:39] Kerry Muhlestein: Well, there are so many things happening right now. Um, one of them I thought that I would point out is that, uh, soon you and I are doing a signing event, it's March 23rd, where we're both talking about some books that we have that we're releasing, and maybe I can just tell my audience a little bit about your book.

It's called From Jericho to Jerusalem, an interactive guide through the Savior's final week. So both of our books are focusing on Easter and, and this is an interactive guide to help us really come to understand Easter better.

[00:02:07] Tammy Uzelac Hall: And Kerry has a book, I'm going to tell you the name of Kerry's book. It's the Easter Connection.

Made whole with God through Christ. And if anybody's ever taken the time to read anything written by Kerry Muhlestein, I can assure you of this. You will come away from it feeling closer to Jesus Christ. I highly recommend you read his books because they're all about covenants, the covenant relationship.

And we've talked a lot about that before, the Abrahamic covenant, the kinsmen, all of this fabulous stuff and how it all began in the old Testament. And so. You're going to want to check these books out if you want to follow. And I think this is kind of cool because Elder Stevenson challenged us to examine the way we celebrate Easter and to do it with as much excitement as we do with Christmas.

And so I think that's kind of what our goal was with these books to kind of just re re engage all of us in the Easter celebration, right?

[00:02:56] Kerry Muhlestein: Amen to that. Amen. Yeah. I really want to help people do that. And as you said, this one as in particular, exploring some covenant connections with the, the sacrifice Christ makes and some elements of that, I think we often don't think of because we haven't put that connection in there.

[00:03:10] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah. Oh, it's going to be so fun. I just think this will be a great Easter for people. You can find our books at deseretbook. com, seagullbook. com, Amazon. I mean, they're. You can find it pretty much everywhere. Okay. So here's what we're going to do today. It is a special combined episode. So everything we're talking about today you can find here or you can also find on Kerry's podcast.

Kerry, how can people find your podcast?

[00:03:34] Kerry Muhlestein: So my podcast is called The Scriptures are Real and you can find it on YouTube and Apple and really all the different platforms for podcasts. So if you just search for the scriptures are real, then you'll be able to find it. Yeah. Which is pretty cool.

[00:03:47] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So if anybody's listening to this and they want their friends to hear it and they don't have a subscription to desert bookshelf plus send them to the scriptures are real and then they can hear everything we talked about today.

So there you go. All right. And if you want to know more about Kerry, I'm going to recommend you go check out his bio, which is going to be in our show notes at LDS living. com slash Sunday on Monday because we will have a link in his bio that will take you to some really cool tours. That he is doing and their church history related.

Is that right? Kerry?

[00:04:16] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah. Yeah. I've got a workshop that's Book of Mormon related and then some tours that are all about church history and Joseph Smith is a translator and consecration and that kind of a thing.

[00:04:25] Tammy Uzelac Hall: In Nauvoo. You get to go to Nauvoo and Adam-ondi-Ahman. Yeah. So

[00:04:29] Kerry Muhlestein: yeah, we're actually staying at Adam-ondi-Ahman.

So that's where we'll be staying and doing our lectures from now.

[00:04:34] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Listen, as a fellow Missourian who's been there many times, I'm telling you right now, if you guys have not been to Nauvoo or Adam-ondi-Ahman. You're going to want to go. It is awesome. And because hello, we're doing Doctrine and Covenants next year.

So the timing is perfect.

[00:04:48] Kerry Muhlestein: This'll be good. Oh, so if it's all right, I'll say for my audience that, uh, we'll have some information about, uh, Tammy. You made, we've, we've done this before, so hopefully my audience is familiar with Tammy and her background in writing far above rubies and as a seminary and institute teacher and so on.

So we'll have some information about Tammy and our show notes. Perfect.

[00:05:06] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. So here's what we have to tell you. Grab your scriptures and whether you're studying alone with family or friends, let's dig into second Nephi chapters 11 through 19. Okay, Kerry, we begin every episode with this question. What did the Holy Ghost teach you this week as you studied 2 Nephi 11 through 19?

[00:05:25] Kerry Muhlestein: There are so many things. It's hard to choose just one, but I think one that has hit me again and again is that God is pleading with us to choose him. And then if we don't, he keeps working with us as much and as long and sometimes as hard as he needs to. But he keeps working with us to try to get us to come back and choose him because the other choices are all going to lead to misery.

And choosing him is what will bring us to joy. And that just kept coming to me again and again. And that helps me feel God's love in such a powerful way. And that's what the Spirit really Just kept whispering to me and washing me in this week.

[00:06:05] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Kerry. I think that is a perfect way to set this whole episode up.

I mean, that is a great theme just to choose him again and again. And so I'd like that you have that, that experience is awesome. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, the thing the Holy ghost taught me is. I'm going to come up in the next segment. And so I'm going to share that with you as we dig into our study of second Nephi chapters 11 through 19.

So we're going to do that next.

Segment 2

---

[00:06:39] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So let's go into second Nephi chapter 11 verse two. This is the verse of all verses, and we've talked about this before on the podcast and we'll talk about it more next week. But. We've got to read this verse. So, Kerry, will you please read verse 2 for us?

[00:06:53] Kerry Muhlestein: I'd be happy to. And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words.

For I will liken his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children, for he verily saw my Redeemer, even as I have seen him.

[00:07:10] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Now, there's a lot in that verse, but what really struck me, and we've talked about this before is he says he delights in the words of Isaiah for his people and he sends them forth and to hit the children, his children.

And when I was reading this, my question was, but why, like why these specific Isaiah versus, and I found these statistics out of the 66 chapters of Isaiah, that's 1, 292 verses. Why did Jacob and Nephi include these specific ones? And this was pretty interesting of the 1, 292 verses in Isaiah, about 430 are quoted in the book of Mormon and some of them more than once for a total of nearly 600 total verses from Isaiah are in the book of Mormon.

And then this is kind of cool of all the quotations from Isaiah. In the book of Mormon were moved into one place and called the book of Isaiah. It would constitute the fourth largest book in the book of Mormon. That's a lot of verses.

[00:08:09] Kerry Muhlestein: It's amazing, isn't it?

[00:08:11] Tammy Uzelac Hall: It's so incredible. And it's been fun to read these chapters and have that question in the back of my mind.

Why this, or especially back in first Nephi, why is this the first Isaiah chapter that Nephi wants us to learn from? And so my question to you then carry, because you're an Isaiah scholar, you have paid the price. to know a lot about Isaiah. And I just wanted to know, from verse 2, when Nephi says he delights in the words of Isaiah, I think you're the same.

At least in my opinion you are. You delight. I love it. So what, what verses specifically do you delight in?

[00:08:44] Kerry Muhlestein: Oh, so many verses that I delight in, but I think in particular, there's some from this reading, But also some from chapters, Isaiah chapters 48 and 49, which were quoted to us in 1 Nephi when we were in the 20, 1 Nephi 20 and 21.

I love the part where God says, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? And he goes on to talk about what he's trying to say is. I haven't cast you off. You've cast yourself off. You have separated yourself from me. And then he talks about, can a woman forget her child? Yea, she may, but I cannot forget you.

And he says, I have engraven thee in the palms of my hands. This idea that he doesn't want us to be separated from him. He is trying to make it so that we are part of him. permanently connected to him, and it's us who separates ourselves, ourselves from him. And that's ties into the chapters that we're talking about today, where he will again and again, as we said, say, why are you choosing something else?

Please choose me. And so that's the part that touches me so much. Isaiah is such a beautiful writer. He has just. Powerful, beautiful imagery and his poetic abilities have a way of just really impressing things on our mind and helping us remember those things and those images. But he keeps using them to say, come to God and God will save you.

And of course that's through his Messiah. And so those are the things that really touch my soul.

[00:10:15] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh my gosh. That's fascinating. Kerry, that those are the verses you chose. It's the same verse I chose. That is what struck me. So it was, it's Isaiah 49, 16, or first Nephi chapter 21 verse 16. And you focused on, behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.

But the part that struck me was thy walls are continually before me. And I can remember reading that going. What in the world? Like, why would I get, I get the part where it says, I have engraved in the, upon the palms of my hands. I totally get that. Thy walls are continually before me. And so I studied that and thought about it.

And it is so beautiful to me because at this time, the walls around Jerusalem would have been in shambles. They would have been broken down or destroyed in different parts. And then I applied it to me. And I think about the times in my life where my walls, Have been broken down, or I have felt like I am in shambles or parts of me are broken.

And then I applied it back to this where it's, he's saying thy walls, my walls are continually before him. Like he sees the word continually, that's, that's a big word. It's not sporadically, it's not usually or sometimes before me.

[00:11:29] Kerry Muhlestein: It's a high percentage. That's a high.

[00:11:32] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I love that so much. It is a high percentage.

The fact that he always sees me, he continually sees me. And then I thought, and he never looks away. There's no part of my brokenness. That he's like, no, I'm not looking at that. Or I can't handle that right now. I think sometimes how I react to my children when they make poor choices, I'm, are you kidding me?

Seriously? Why did you do that?

[00:11:54] Kerry Muhlestein: You know, or did you not think this through? Yeah.

[00:11:57] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Did you not think this through? And there he is just looking at me with this beautiful look of compassion of saving, wanting to help me and want not only wanting to help me, but wanting to help me rebuild my wall. That's what he does.

And so I finally understood that when I thought, Oh, he, he is seeing my walls continually. Thank you. And I'm going to need a lot of help to rebuild this because I'm not a Mason. There's no way I have the skillset to build this wall up as perfectly as it needs to be. But he does, he knows how to do it.

He's been doing it forever and he'll do it for all of us. And so that was my, that's what the Holy Ghost taught me this week as I was studying. And it goes back to what you said, Kerry, like just choose him. And that's all I have to do. I just have to choose him as my builder. How easy is that? Like, listen, I've gone through my whole life.

I've gotten a lot of estimates from a lot of other sources and they're not going to be as great. And I, I just have to choose him and he's going to help me rebuild that.

[00:12:59] Kerry Muhlestein: That's beautiful. And maybe we can just explore that image just a little more because a lot of times when in our day, when we hear walls, we're like, well, we're supposed to let our walls down.

We shouldn't put walls up. Right. Good. Good. Yes. But in the ancient world for Jerusalem, those walls are what protect them. This is what keeps them safe from the outside dangerous forces, right? So that's, walls and gates are a symbol of protection. So when God says your walls are continually before me, like you said, he's going to build them, he's going to make them.

But what he's saying is, I'll protect you. I'll make you safe and I, I think that's so beautiful. I, again, as parents, you talked about being parents and our kids like, but you feel that way for your children, right? You're like, you get behind me, I'll take this on, I'll, I'll protect you from this. And that's what God is saying is you stand behind my walls, right?

Or your walls, but I'll build them. As you said, you stand behind there. I got this for you. And that's a really beautiful image.

[00:13:55] Tammy Uzelac Hall: That just gave me chills. I got this for you. I think he says that to us way more than we even want to hear. Yeah, that's true. Oh, Kerry, that's incredible. Okay. Well, let's go back in then to second Nephi, starting with chapter 11 and just one more question of all of these verses that we're going to read today from chapters 11 to 19.

Is there one specific verse that stood out to you from today's reading?

[00:14:18] Kerry Muhlestein: Oh, there, there, there is, and we'll probably, yeah, but we'll probably talk about it a little bit more, but I love the imagery at the end of Isaiah 4 or 2 Nephi 14, where he talks about washing away the filth and especially the Lord will, this is verse 5, And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence.

And that's that same kind of imagery that we were just talking about, that God is going to guide us, direct us, protect us from heat, protect us from enemies, he'll do everything for us. And we'll talk more about this later, the context of that and how they got to that point makes it even more beautiful to me.

[00:15:11] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh my gosh. I can't wait. Okay, so let's do this. We're going to dig in. So in the next segment, we're really going to dig into the words of Isaiah and the words that Nephite that he felt were so important for us to know, we'll do that next.

Segment 3

---

[00:15:31] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Because Isaiah used symbolic language, it can be so easy to overlook his main theme, which is Jesus Christ. So as a result, we may miss out on Isaiah's powerful witness of the savior. So we're going to look at three different references in our reading for this week. And discuss some of the focus that or the theme on the savior in these verses.

So let's first go to second Nephi chapter 13 verse 13. Okay. And that's all we're going to talk about for this one right here. So I will read it and then carry it. Love for you to jump in. Okay. The Lord stand up to plead and stand to judge the people. So, how can we find Christ in this verse other than the name Lord?

Why does this teach us about him?

[00:16:17] Kerry Muhlestein: It's a beautiful question. I love this segment overall because remember, this is why Nephi said he was going to teach us Isaiah and write Isaiah down was to testify of Christ. So let's focus on that. And I think that we can understand this better if we understand how they really think of the word judge.

When we hear judge, we mean, or we think someone is going to say, okay, you did right or wrong. Here's your punishment and so on. And that's an element of it. But really, for Israelites, to judge means to make things the way they should be, to make things right. And that, that has an element of, well, if you've been oppressing this person, we're going to have to stop that.

Or you stole from this person, we're going to have to restore that, and so on. So there is a, a, a, Judicial element to it, but it's mostly about taking care of people. If you study the way the prophets use the word judge, it's usually in taking care of the poor, the fatherless, the widow. And so judging is making things right.

Let's look at that verse again and think of this, the Lord Jehovah or Christ standeth to plead. So there's some of that imagery you and I've already been talking about, please. Do this right. Please make the right choices. Please come to me and to judge the people, meaning what his desire is to make everything right for everybody.

And ideally, that would mean that the everyone has done everything right. So he just gives us all rewards. But in reality, someone is oppressing someone else. So he has to. Remove the oppressor, the oppression, so he removes the oppressor, and so on, right? So this will have an element that isn't good for those who haven't chosen him, but he will still give them another chance, and that's another form of judgment.

Well, you can change and come to me. So, I love this because it really is saying that Christ is pleading with us to come to him, and he is doing everything he can to make things right for all of us. Yeah.

[00:18:08] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I was struck with this verse because I was reading that Christ has two legal roles for us in the heavenly courts.

The first one is an advocate, and that's what he's talked about as, as he's pleading for us. That's his role as an advocate. And then his second role is as a judge to judge the people. And now after what you taught us, Kerry. He is a judge who will make things right. That is a powerful way to view the word judge.

So that is so cool. But I was curious to know what your thoughts were on. Why does it say standeth both times standeth up? Why doesn't it say the Lord is going to plead for us. The Lord will judge his people. Why is the word stand in that important in that verse?

[00:18:47] Kerry Muhlestein: It seems to me to denote a very active role.

He is getting up. He's going to do this. He's not waiting for us to come to him. He's not waiting for us to be drugged before him in some kind of court scene or something like that. He is coming to us to try and make this happen.

[00:19:04] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, I like that. I just had that image of us being drug in with, in shackles with our hands behind our back in cuffs.

And that's not what this is. Okay. That's really awesome. Kerry. I love that. Okay. That was that verse. Let's go to another one. Let's go to second Nephi chapter 16 verses one through three. This is probably one of my faves. Oh, I love this description of Jehovah from Isaiah. Okay. Verses one through three.

I'll read them and then Kerry, I'll let you go. Here we go. Let's go. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings, with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. But how is that a theme of Christ?

[00:20:04] Kerry Muhlestein: It's so beautiful. And we could spend like the next hour just going through these three verses. So we'll give a, we'll give a shorter version of this. But so we have to remember he's seen the Lord Jehovah, who is Christ.

Now it's Christ representing the father, but they've taught us so many times that they're the same, that as we learn about one, we learn about the other. And that's the very point. So in one way, this is one of the ways that. That we learn about Christ to recognize that in learning about Christ, we're learning about the Father.

They're so similar to each other. So this is Christ, but it teaches us something about his nature that he's represented the Father. And so, first of all, it's in a temple, right? So. My guess would be that it's a model of the temple that Isaiah is familiar with, which is Solomon's temple. But this seems to be in heaven.

He's seeing what we might call the heavenly temple. And he's on this throne. So remember in the Holy of Holies, you have the Ark of the Covenant, which is supposed to be his throne. So he was on that throne and he's high, he's lifted up the train. So that's gotta be the part of his robe that denotes glory, that denotes, you know, like a bridal train.

That's the part of the dress that isn't functional. It's there to denote, this is a special occasion, there's something different about this. So the train is the, symbolically, it's that which denotes the awesomeness of God, and it's so awesome it fills the entire temple. It reminds me of when they dedicated the Temple of Solomon, and the glory of God filled it so much that the priests had to leave.

It filled the whole temple, they couldn't stay in the temple, it was overwhelming for them.

[00:21:32] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Like the Kirtland Temple. The current temple dedication had that experience. It was just so, it was so overwhelming for everyone. Now listen, Kerry, I, I might be older than you, but you remember in the eighties when princess Diana got married and that train that followed her, like those of us from the eighties will remember.

Yes. It's the longest train we had ever seen in our entire lives. And I just think of that, like how long and big, and it filled the aisle from seat to seat, it filled every space. And so I'm just thinking of how God's train, these temple robes, they will just fill or the glory just fills the whole temple. So beautiful.

[00:22:08] Kerry Muhlestein: It is, and it's just an image. Again, Isaiah uses words to create an image, and then the image is designed to help us feel something. So that's the question we have to ask ourselves is, what is Isaiah trying to get us to feel as he paints this amazing picture, right? So he's painted a picture that

[00:22:24] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, there's so many feels in these verses.

[00:22:26] Kerry Muhlestein: There are. That's good. Right? So I'll ask you that question. When he paints this image of He's going to say the glory fills the house in another way, but he's just painted that with this train that fills the whole house. And that's a symbolic of the glory of God filling everything. What does that make you feel?

[00:22:44] Tammy Uzelac Hall: It makes me feel overwhelmed. There's the power and the magnum, just how magnanimous he is.

[00:22:51] Kerry Muhlestein: It's huge. And isn't that the same reaction Isaiah has? I shouldn't be here. I'm a man of unclean lips, right? God's glory is so amazing that anyone who comes to his presence is going to be like Moses and say, Oh, now I know that man is nothing, which I hadn't supposed before.

Right? That's what he's trying to get us to feel. He's experienced it. He has seen God. He recognizes this isn't. His majesty and his might and his glory is more than you and I can even start to imagine. And so he's trying to help us feel that feeling that he felt, right?

[00:23:25] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah, in fact, I felt something in verse 2. So tell us about that.

[00:23:30] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah, verse 2 I love. So we've got these seraphim, right? It comes from the Hebrew word seraph, which means to burn. So these are like burning, fiery beings. And I think that's their way of saying these are light filled beings. There's just so much light coming from them. Right. And they've got these six wings and we can understand that a little bit.

Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants gives us a little bit of an explanation of these wings. Like at least some of them, the ones that they fly with are symbolic of their ability to move and to act and to do things. So these are powerful means they can do things, but I'm really touched by the other two where they cover their face.

And they cover their feet. So maybe we can do the feet first. And I'm sure they're, I mean, we're talking about symbols here. We said, you know, that the train symbolizes this. One thing we need to be careful of with Isaiah is that his symbols always have more than one meaning. And so any meaning we're talking about, we're not saying that's the only meaning.

You should explore, you should pray, you should ponder these things. Each time you read it, a different meaning will come to you. So I don't, as I talk about one meaning, I want to be very clear. It's not the only meaning. Oh, good. I'm glad you said that. Yeah, it's, it's an important point and, and, and it's the same thing with interpretations of his prophecies.

One interpretation should not become the interpretation and we shouldn't limit ourselves to that. But as we talk about feet, I think at least one image is our feet are the, the part of us that brings the world with them, right? Literally. They've got the earth on them. They're the filthiest part of us.

They're the dirtiest part of us. That's why Moses is going to, at least part of why, Moses is going to have to take his shoes off when he comes into the presence of a light filled bush, right? Which again, I think it's just this image of brightness and glory. And so I think that that worldliness is being covered.

And remember that the Hebrew word we translate as atonement means to cover. So, when it says with Twain, he covered his feet, it's Kippur, I mean, he's covering as in a toning for his feet, you could almost say. And the same thing with the face, I find that really interesting because there's probably a couple things going on.

These are the beans that are between. Isaiah and God. So if this were in the Temple of Solomon, they would be the cherubim that are on the veil that is keeping those priests that are in the holy place separate from the holy of holies where God is, because if they see God and they're not worthy, they're gonna die.

They won't survive that encounter. These beings are, are fulfilling that role in some ways, and they're in the same place where they would be if they were on that curtain or that veil. And so I think that part of what's happening is that they are too holy for Isaiah. They are higher, holier beings than he is, and so, just like Moses had to veil his face after being with God to protect the Israelites from the light coming from his face, they're protecting Isaiah from them, but God is too holy for them, right, because they're on that threshold between Isaiah and God, and so they probably also have to have their face veiled to protect them from God's glory.

Because we have these, it's almost like you have three degrees of holiness right here. Which is, you get in the temple, you have the outer court, the inner room, the holy place, and then the holy of holies, right? These three degrees of holiness, you have it represented in the people here. With Isaiah, the Seraphim, and God.

And yet, the whole purpose of this Is to make it so Isaiah can come into God's presence. And, and to get him past all of these things. And that's where I think we really see Christ here. Is that, yes, there are all these degrees of separation, but the point is, and if we were to read the whole chapter, we'd see it comes to be the case.

Isaiah can be changed through the sacrifice of Christ to where he can interact with God directly. And that's a really beautiful image and thought.

[00:27:06] Tammy Uzelac Hall: And then take us to verse three. What is your take on the word holy being said three times?

[00:27:12] Kerry Muhlestein: So in, in Hebrew, you've got a singular, you have a dual, and then a plural.

So for us, it's either singular or plural. Two, you get to plural. Dual is like for things that occur naturally as two wings or two eyes or two feet or something like that. But if you're going to get to what we call the superlative, you have to do it three times. So the way we would say most holy. The way they say it is holy, which I think is actually more descriptive.

It's it evokes the feeling more than just saying most totally. This is their way of saying this is the holiest you can be. Yeah. If you say it three times, that's ultimate maximum velocity of holiness. We could say, I

[00:27:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: like that maximum velocity of whole. Yeah. The holiest, but not just the holiest, the maximum velocity of holiness.

I think that's awesome. Kerry, that is so good. Okay. I have one more word. I want you to tell us what it means. Let's go quickly to second Nephi chapter 18 and verse 14. There's a word here and you're like, how is this Jesus? Okay. So 14 says, and he shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel for a gin, which is a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Okay. The word is sanctuary. How is Christ, how can we find Jesus in that word sanctuary? What does that mean?

[00:28:33] Kerry Muhlestein: Okay, that's a beautiful thing and that, that takes us back like the sanctuary in Jerusalem is the temple, right? But it's this place, and think of how you think of the temple for yourself. If you're having a really troubled time or you need some peace in your life.

That's where you can feel peace more than anywhere else, right? A sanctuary is a place of protection, of peace, of safety. And it happens literally at the temple as well. There are altars and there are horns on the altar, and if you are seeking sanctuary, you run and you grab hold of that horn on that altar, which again is symbolic of Christ and His atoning sacrifice and power, right?

So you're then protected from If someone's seeking to, to put you to death because of something you've done wrong or something along those lines, this is where you can claim sanctuary. And so this comes back to this theme we've been talking about. Christ is our protection. He is our safety. He is the way that we can be protected from death and hell, our own sins, the fall, our stupidity, our silliness, our ding dong iness, whatever it is, other people's terrible things that they do, right?

It doesn't mean it will stop any of it from happening. But we, when it does happen. We can go and claim sanctuary. We can find the healing and the peace and the protection and the sheltering that we need. We can, as again, that image of we can stand behind Christ and let Him take this on for us.

[00:29:56] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Has there been a time in your life where you've experienced Him as your sanctuary?

Like, is there a story you could share?

[00:30:02] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah, there, there have been many times, but the one that comes to me, uh, first off, we, we have a daughter that has had a number of health problems that then became a neurological disorder and so on. And there was a period of time where things looked really bad for her.

She's, I'm happy to say we're on a slow, but steady upward trend with her health problems and the neurological disorder and so on. But it, we had probably six months that were just, they felt like hell. I didn't know sometimes if she was going to live and there were times she didn't want to live and it was terrible and I went to the temple more during that time than ever before and sometimes it was difficult.

I can remember one time being in the temple as she was having some studies done on her that seemed like we thought there was a decent chance these studies were going to reveal that she didn't have long to live and I had to come to terms with that in the temple. And the peace that came, and I'm glad to say she's still alive, but the peace that came as I had to wrestle with that and know that God has this, right?

And the temple teaches us that He provides a way. He makes, through His Son, Jesus Christ, He makes a way for everything to work out right. That idea we were talking about before, He will make it right. It will be okay. It may not be the plan we thought of or the way we would have chosen. But God will make it right.

And there were so many times I needed peace and found peace there in the temple, a huge sanctuary. Sometimes I didn't get the direction that I needed right at that moment. God wanted me to wait, but the peace was still there.

[00:31:35] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, Kerry, thank you. I appreciate you being willing to share that experience because I think many of us, including me who heard that knew that what you're saying was true and it just is another witness to us that he really is our sanctuary and we can go to his house.

And so thank you. I really appreciate you sharing that. Okay. Well, what we'll do then is in the next segment, we're going to continue with this idea of themes and we're going to find out what the next theme is. We'll do that next.

Segment 4

---

[00:32:13] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay, let's go to second Nephi chapters 12 through 13. You can also find this in Isaiah chapter two and three, and there is chaos going on and Kerry's going to tell us all about this. So Kerry, what is going on in these verses?

[00:32:28] Kerry Muhlestein: Well, it's interesting. There's a very strong contrast made so we get to follow with the theme We were just on at the beginning of chapter 2 of Isaiah 12 of 2nd Nephi We get this image of the temple right the mountain of the Lord's house.

And by the way, this is probably the Real beginning of Isaiah chapter one. It seems to be chronologically written later And then it's put on at the beginning as a preface like section one is a preface of the Doctrine and Covenants So I I think that move to make it at the beginning might have happened after Nephi and Lehi's day because Nephi starts with this chapter.

It makes me think it may have been The first chapter is still for him, and the chapter one was added later. But anyway, he starts with this image of the temple and goes on to show that as we go to the temple, as we accept God's law and covenants, that there will be an amazing period of peace, right? He talks about, we don't need weapons of war anymore, so we can take all our weapons of war.

And it's this beautiful imagery that he creates, right? Take the swords and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. That's in verse 4. And then pleads in verse 5. This is some of this pleading that we've been talking about. O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Yea, come. For ye have all gone astray, every one to his wicked ways. And from there on, so he's pleading, please come to us so you can have that image I've just been talking about. Where there's peace and not war. But right now, that's not where you are. So he goes on to describe all the ways that they have turned away from God by making idols of silver and gold and treasure and horses and, you know, so basically war, the power of man and the wealth of man is what he's saying.

And because they've chosen that, There's just going to be more bad things happening than you can imagine. And so maybe I can introduce that Isaiah uses, he uses what, what I call chaos imagery. He loves to take, he loves to take things that are the way they normally would be and turn them on their head.

So that's a phrase, that's actually a chaos phrase in English to turn something on its head, to turn everything inside out or upside down. Right. Those are all chaos phrases that we use, which means everything's. Well, haywire, that's another word. All the phrases I can use are English equivalents, right?

Where everything is not the way we expect it to be, but it's the opposite and things are terrible because of that. And Isaiah is a master at using that and contrasting it with superabundance imagery. So the beating the swords and the spears into farm implements to bring us more prosperity, that's an abundance image.

Contrast it with the chaos image that is when everything is the opposite of what you would like it to be or what you expect it to be, what it should be. And he always ends up tying this to covenant. So when you keep the covenant, you get the superabundance. When you break the covenant by going to idols or trusting in something else, then you get the chaos imagery.

So just as an example, if we were to go to the beginning of Isaiah 3 or 2 Nephi 13, look at the way he starts this out. For behold, the Lord of hosts doth take away from Jerusalem and Judah the stay and the staff. Now, those are two different words. It's basically provisions, which is a masculine word Hebrew has.

Uh, feminine and masculine nouns. It's either one or the other. It's a masculine word normally, but he changes it, uh, he makes it both a masculine and a feminine. So it's like provision and provisionette, which is his way of saying all your provisions, everything you could eat. All of it is being taken away, the staff of bread and the stay of water.

So, first of all, no food. That's chaos. Then he lists all the different people who they usually have guiding and directing them. Men of war, judges, prophets, prudent, ancient, captain of 50, honorable men, counselors, artificers, and orators, right? That's who you usually have. They're going to be gone and instead I will give them children to be their princes and babe shall rule over them.

Right? So in a society where we get our phrase elder from this, the older person is supposed to be who takes care of you because they're wise, right? The older person is wise. So they'll take care of you, but you're going to have children giving you all the rules, right? Now we want to be like children in some ways, but I don't think we want them running our governments or our wards for that matter.

Right. And then. The people, she'll be oppressed everyone by another. So that's the opposite. Everyone should be taking care of each other, but instead they're going to oppress each other and the child won't honor their parent and so on. So he takes everything and turns it on its head and paints a picture of everything having gone completely wrong because they aren't keeping the covenant.

[00:37:11] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yes, exactly right. And then we come up to this. This Now, and we've taught throughout this podcast, the if and then statements and scriptures. If you do this, then this will happen, but we have a different type of statement in second Nephi chapter 13 in verse 16 and 17. It's a because and now statement because you did this.

Now here's what's going to happen. And the Lord has been very clear. What he's going to do. In fact, in second Kings chapter 17, he says, now I must remove myself and my house from them. Like I'm going to take my house at my temple. And we know that happened. The temple was destroyed, but he's setting this up by saying, I'm going to take all of the temple stuff away.

And this just, I just think second Nephi chapter 13 verses 16 through 26 and including chapter 14 verse one, which Kerry will tell us about in a minute. I think we've taught them poorly. Yeah, because we're not talking about the daughters of Zion, meaning the women of the church. So if you look at verse 16, it says, moreover, the Lord saith, here it is.

Because the daughters of Zion, daughters of Zion, universally across the board has always meant Judah and Jerusalem. In fact, that's what chapter 13 is about Judah and Jerusalem. I can't find one instance where the daughters of Zion literally means girls, except for this verse. We have kind of mistranslated it.

So we're talking about all of God's people, right? Judah and Jerusalem. That's who he's talking to in this verse. Would you agree? Kerry?

[00:38:44] Kerry Muhlestein: I would. In fact, I would say it's, uh, metonymy. We could say it's where you take a single part to represent the whole, right? Yes. Yes. And in this case, the single part he's chosen is the part that typically you would say, this is the best we have.

Yeah. And look. It's got a problem. So think of the whole and the problem that the whole have. So it's, and that's a poetic device Isaiah uses frequently is to say, I'm going to talk about your foot, but what I really mean is your ability to move and walk and so on. Right? That's what he's doing here. He's using the image of daughters of Zion to say, I'm talking about all of you by choosing the part that you expect it to be great.

And look at what's happening.

[00:39:26] Tammy Uzelac Hall: And then he says what they're doing. They walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and making a tinkling with their feet. Absolutely. That is true. That is haughtiness. That is pride. It's everything he's already described. They have, and they're just, they're not doing very good.

So we then in verse 17, he says, therefore, or now. The Lord, he's going to smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. And we get into this whole example of verses 18 through 26 of how he's going to do this. Now, we've often read this to mean, Oh, look, he's going to take away all the things that women wear, all their jewelry, all their clothing, all their fancy things.

But we're going to reframe this. So Steven Ricks, a professor from BYU, he wrote an article called the Garment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian tradition. And he says this, according to several rabbis, when God made woman, he adorned her and decked her out with 24 pieces of finery. And then he quotes what's called the Genesis Rabbah.

Kerry, what is the Genesis Rabbah?

[00:40:36] Kerry Muhlestein: It's just a Jewish commentary and I guess extrapolation on Genesis. It's a way of teaching about Genesis.

[00:40:44] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Perfect. If you read footnote 7. So I bought the Genesis Rabbah because I had to see it for myself. And I read this verse and there's a footnote to it. And footnote 7 says, The 24 pieces of finery Are the items listed in Isaiah chapter 3 verses 18 through 23 and are considered to be the 24 pieces of finery that were given to Eve in the Garden of Eden for Eden.

So Eden we know is a type of a temple and Eve is given these 24 pieces of finery that we read about in these verses. These are. Temple centric pieces. This is not clothing or jewelry that women wear. The Lord is saying, I'm going to take away all these pieces of the temple that you don't get to have access to anymore.

And the word that kind of sets this up is in verse 18, when he says, In that day, the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments. You want to mark the word bravery. And here's what you want to know about this specific word, because this is so cool. All right. The word bravery right here, it's used 51 times in the old Testament, the Hebrew word for bravery.

Isaiah three is the only place that this word is interpreted as bravery in all other occurrences. The word in Hebrew means glory. Honor, beauty, or excellence. And it's actually associated with the clothing of the temple. So now instead of bravery, it says, and in that day, the Lord will take away the glory Of their tinkling ornaments and calls and round tires like the moon.

And there's so many things like this is kind of fun because I met Kerry a few years ago. I'd never met you in person. We had just talked and I wanted to just run this by you and say, Kerry, what do you think? Like, could these things be? And it was such a fun interchange that we had because you went through and started looking up everything in Hebrew.

So Kerry, tell me some of your thoughts.

[00:42:37] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah, I think this is fun stuff, right? I don't know if literally Eve was given 24 pieces of finery or anything like that. Right. But what we're talking about is these symbols and the symbols that were attached to it somewhere over time. This idea that this is somehow tied with things that should be good.

That should be right are becoming something that's wrong, right? It's being used in the wrong way or thought of in the wrong way. And we get that same thing happening. For example, when Jerusalem's destroyed, you have both Jeremiah and Ezekiel talking about, well, they're in the temple and they're doing the things they're supposed to, but they're also doing all these other things.

They're using the temple things for idolatry and for the wrong things. Right. And I think that's part of what Isaiah is saying here. He seems to be painting a picture. And again, this is representing it's taking, I don't know if it's literally happening or not. Again, we're using chaos imagery, so it's symbolic, right?

But he seems to be describing, real or not, using some women to describe all of Judah and Israel, and saying, look, what they seem to want is to attract men, a whole bunch of men for each woman, and doing it in the wrong way. They're taking the things that should be bringing them to me, and they're using them to try and get a worldly desire.

And as a result, that doesn't work. It can't work. So instead, it will be turned on its head. And that's where we get, again, this chaos imagery, right? Instead of a sweet smell, stink. Instead of a girdle of rent. Instead of well set hair, baldness. That's all chaos imagery. Because he's really trying to tell them, I gave you good things.

Beautiful things that were supposed to tie you to me and whether that's jewelry or whether that's the beautiful things of the gospel, it's all or the sacrifices of the law of Moses or whatever, right? It stands for all of those things. I gave you these things to bring you to me and you're taking the things of me and Dying them to worldly desires, worldly things, you're trying to get the wrong things in the wrong way for the wrong reason.

And so it will, it reminds me of when President Nelson says the world teaches you can get peace and rest by seeking after power, popularity, possessions, or pleasures of the flesh. And they cannot yield that, he taught us. They just can't. It's not capable. And God is saying that to them. You can't get What you're searching for here.

So if we were to continue going right after all of this chaos imagery and everything's turned on its head, we often miss these next couple verses in verse 25, men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war. Now, that literally happened that, I mean, the Assyrians came and thousands and thousands of men died in that war, which caused everyone to lament in the gates and, and to be desolate and, and sit upon the ground.

Now just. Ignore that there's a chapter break. It shouldn't be there. Uh, If there's gonna be one, it should be after verse one. And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man. Why are there seven women to one man? Because they've all died in a war, right? And so they have to say, well then, please just, I'll take care of myself.

We don't really in practice have to be husband and wife. Let's just look like it, right? But the point that he's trying to make, that's chaos imagery. That's a furthering of chaos imagery. And the point he's trying to make is, That, that these women fictitional or not, I don't know. They're just symbolic. So these symbolic women are, we're wanting to do all these wrong things to attract all sorts of men.

And in the end. There are no men, because all of Judah has turned against God. They can't get what they want, because what they were, they wanted the wrong thing, and they were going about it the wrong way, and that can't happen. It just doesn't work. Choose God, and use His beautiful things to come to Him.

The beautiful things that gives in his life to come to him rather than for our own worldly selfish desires.

[00:46:27] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Well, and could it be possible in that verse after all of this has happened and they realize because in verse 18, he says, I'm going to take all of this stuff away. I'm going to remove myself. I cannot, I can't help you in verse 25.

He doesn't. They, they fall by the sword because he can't fight their battles for them anymore. They don't believe or trust in him. Would it be fair then? In fact, everybody just put a square around chapter 14 verse one. I put a red square around that and I drew an arrow and I created verse 27 because as Kerry said, he believes that verse one is actually, and many scholars believe that, that it's actually part of that other chapter.

Could it be then that in this verse and in that day, seven women, and if we're using the woman to be speaking of Christ's people, could it possibly be that the one man they then take hold as they come to realize, wait a minute. I think we messed up. Could the one man be Christ and the reproach be their sin?

Take away the reproach of our sin and what we've done wrong. We're sorry we messed up.

[00:47:27] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah. And again, that's the beauty of Isaiah and the layers of meanings he has, because I think that's the next layer, right? As you get one layer where you're like, okay, there aren't enough men because of all the death and so on and set, but then let's go and you get the seven to one ratio, but then you go another layer.

And well, seven is symbolic of like. totality of everything. And so all women need to come to the one man who can take away their reproach, who can take care of them, who can give them things. And that would be Christ, right? And if we tied this in with some of the themes we were talking about before, and even I think some images we won't get to in Isaiah 5 the allegory of the vineyard and so on.

Oh, I know. Note in there that. When all God does is he takes away his protection of the vineyard and the vineyard gets overrun, right? That's that ties in with our image of his our walls are before him or he's been protecting Israel and Judah But now all he has to do is well He doesn't have to well in a way he has to when we turn away from him and when we break that Covenant He can no longer be with us as you said, right?

That means his protection is gone. Well, what happens when his protection is gone? We are overrun by the symbolic Assyrians, right? The Assyrians literally for them, but whatever that ends up being, all sorts of bad things happen without God protecting us. If he can't stand in front of us and say, I'll take this for you.

If we're the ones exposed to the Assyrians coming, we're done. We're gone. Right. And so that will, but the point of that is to humble us. That's the point of the chaos, right, to humble us so that we come back to him so that these seven women, meaning all of us, come back to Christ and say, please protect us again.

We want back in this relationship and please take care of us and let us be with you again.

[00:49:20] Tammy Uzelac Hall: And going back to how you started, Kerry, we choose you. Yes. We messed up. Okay. So we choose you. So, Oh my gosh, that was a fun discussion. Okay. Well then let's carry on. Let's keep going then. And in the next segment, we're going to dive then into chapter 14 or Isaiah four to see what that message then is to those who said, take away our reproach.

We'll do that next.

Segment 5

---

[00:49:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: All right. We are in second Nephi chapter 14. Now this chapter is pretty significant because this is kind of cool. In a letter to WW Phelps published in the Messenger and Advocate, Joseph Smith wrote that in 1835, Moroni had recited Isaiah four to him and then said it would soon have fulfillment. So talk to me about this chapter.

What's going on? These people have said, take away our reproach and what comes up next, Kerry. What are the themes here?

[00:50:19] Kerry Muhlestein: And yeah, let's talk about the themes. We've talked about choosing God or not choosing God and so on, and we'll continue to talk about that, but part of it is the cycle. In the Book of Mormon, we call it the pride cycle.

In the Old Testament, we might call it the idolatry cycle. I think they're all versions of what I call the covenant corruption cycle. Oh, I love that. I call it the covenant cycle, but that means you keep the covenant and you cycle up, and that's not what this cycle is. This is when we don't. Keep the covenant, whether it's because of pride, adultery, they're all just ways of choosing something other than God.

When we keep the covenant, we're blessed. And then we think it's because of us or because of idols or because of something else. We turn away from God, then God will humble us. But the point of, and that's as we go down in that cycle, the point of humbling us is always to get us to come back to him. to get us to choose him again.

And that's what we just saw with the Judah and Israel being represented by the daughters of Zion and they're humbled and so they come back to him and they choose him right. This is the cycle that we just see all over in scriptures and It, the wonderful thing about it in these verses is that we see that it worked and we see that in the Book of Mormon all over the place.

Okay. We got humble and it worked. We came back to God for a while. Then we go through the cycle again, but it worked because they were so humbled because everything was taken away from them and sweet smell became a stink and well said hair became a baldness and burning instead of beauty, uh, and all of the death that did.

Cause everyone to come back to Christ, as we said in the end of chapter 14, verse one. And so this is why I think we should just not have a separate chapter. But anyway, I agree because verse one is definitely the fall on of the thoughts beforehand. This is why there's so few men and so on, but it's also the story of them coming back to Christ, which leads to.

What we get in chapter two. So if I had to put a break, I'd put it in between one and two because this is the next phase, starting in verse two, this is the next phase. Once they've come back to God, once they've been humbled and recognize it, then we get verse two. So in that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious.

Now branch sometimes refers to Christ. Sometimes it refers to Israel and with Isaiah, it usually means all of the above. Right, so, because Christ is beautiful and glorious and we come back to him, then we as Israel, or ancient Israel in Isaiah's day, becomes beautiful. And glorious and the fruit of the earth.

Excellent. Right? It, it just, this is the abundance imagery. It shall come to pass. They that are left in Zion, so lots have been killed in these wars, but they that are left and remain in Jerusalem shall be called holy Everyone that is written among the living in Jerusalem when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion.

I just love, love, love that that issue, right? He's just gotten after them pretty hard. But that doesn't mean it's the end. The end is this. He will wash away our filth and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion.

We mentioned these earlier, but Mount Zion and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day. So now he's using Exodus imagery as they were protected from the heat by the cloud and the shining flame of. Fire by night gave them warmth and the coldness of the desert and it guided them where to go and it should be for the glory of Zion and a defense, that's what we've been talking about.

And there should be a tabernacle, that sanctuary we've been talking about, for a shadow by the daytime from the heat and for a place of refuge and a covert from the storm and from rain. All those protection and peace and sanctuary images that we've been talking about, but I love it because He is basically saying, however silly, stupid, sinful, whatever it is you have been, you all of Jerusalem, all of Judah, all of Israel.

I will cleanse it. And we know that this literally happened. They were, they were destroyed. So many people destroyed in those wars. But Hezekiah gets them to come back to God and get rid of their idols and renew their covenant. And as a result, they're miraculously spared. Right? So this is a prophecy that literally happened within a generation.

And then when we know that story, it can help us understand what he's saying about Israel in our day, and Israel being gathered in our day, and you and me as Israelite individuals being gathered to God as we choose Him. And the beauty of however dumb we have been, however filthy we have been, It can be washed away, and we become holy, and we get to be with God again in a glorious, beautiful way.

It's just such a fantastic example of the cycle and the humbling working and ending the way we want it to end.

[00:55:15] Tammy Uzelac Hall: You know, what I love about this, Kerry, is going back to the idea when you said Isaiah wants us to feel something. Because I absolutely felt something in verse six, there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and for a place of refuge and covert from storm and from rain.

I get that verse. I have experienced those feelings. I have experienced needing. Hey, everybody, I don't like summer. There you go. I love all the seasons except for summer because I hate to sweat. I don't like being hot. And there have been times I've been known to take an umbrella somewhere just so that I can be covered.

Like my daughter did soccer one year. You better believe I took an umbrella because I did not want to sit in that heat and then to be covered from a storm and from rain. I mean, that there's so much beauty in that. And I feel that I want that. And he's, it kind of reminds me of Joseph Smith when he says, where are our pavilion?

Or they hiding place when he's in Liberty jail, he's like, where are you? I want you to be covering me and then the Lord teaches him the best lesson ever. But I think so many times we've wondered that question, like where is that covering or that tabernacle that's going to protect me? And I think it's just so simple.

It's what you've said. It's there. We just have to choose him and trust him. I think that's the key too, is trusting that he really is going to do what he says he's going to do. And I think that's the imagery of this for me. And I felt that when I've read that.

[00:56:44] Kerry Muhlestein: Amen to that. Amen.

[00:56:46] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Good stuff. Good stuff. Okay.

So there's our theme. Now, quickly then Kerry, connect us to this theme and how does it connect us to Nephi?

[00:56:57] Kerry Muhlestein: I'm so glad you asked that. I think if we see Nephi and his life. personally. Think of what he's seen in his family. His father has told them what they need to do is learn from God about what's about to happen in Jerusalem.

They can choose to stay with the Jews who are making the wrong choices, not listening to Jeremiah and, and be destroyed or they can choose to listen to their father and leave. And the whole family does choose to leave, but some of them somewhat grudgingly. And then we see this division in the family where Nephi and Sam, Zoram, and so on, keep continually choosing to follow God.

And Laman and Lemuel keep continually choosing to follow the world, their fallen natures, and so on. And so Nephi has seen firsthand what happens when you make one choice or the other. He's also seen a couple of times his brother repent, his brothers repent and come back to God, but it doesn't ever seem to stick.

And that's something that I think is painful for Nephi. And he's using Isaiah to try to get his Descendants to learn those lessons and choose God and stay with God.

[00:58:04] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, yes. That is why he chose. Oh my gosh. What you just said right there, Kerry. I just had an aha. That is why he chose all these specific chapters of Isaiah.

Whoa. That was so cool. That is the theme of why he chose these chapters. Okay. I'm just having this connection because that answers my question. Why of all the chapters and that's all those chapters do that. That is so cool of Isaiah.

[00:58:31] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah. He's good. He's good. He's good.

[00:58:33] Tammy Uzelac Hall: He's good. Okay. So we're going to do this, our last theme, and we're going to read about that in second Nephi chapter 17, and we'll do that next.

Segment 6

---

[00:58:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay, we've covered a lot. A lot of themes. And so it was interesting because I, in my mind, I thought there is just so much to grasp. And then I was shocked to find out that the name of the next person we're going to talk about actually means to grasp or to take hold of. Let's go to second Nephi chapter 17 verse one, and we're going to mark the name of this person.

Here it is. It says, and it came to pass in the days of Ahaz. So Ahaz in Hebrew means to take or grasp. There's a lot here, but Kerry's going to teach us something really neat. And I want you to talk to us about the choice that God gave to Ahaz and how did that become a theme for Isaiah as well as one of the major themes of the small plates.

[00:59:31] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah. And I think it is part of why Nephi has chosen this particular section to write and put down for us. Let's just do, we don't want to spend too much time, but a little bit of the historical background will help us understand. Ahaz is king of Judah. You've got the Assyrian empire. So over in modern day Iraq, there, coming down.

They're going west and then down south to take over Syria, Israel, Judah. That's what their goal is. All right. And Israel, the kingdom of Israel, that kingdom just north of Judah and Syria, just north of them have decided, well, they don't want to be taken over by a Syria. So they're going to try and resist them.

And so they've allied. Themselves to resist us area, but they feel like they're not enough on their own. They want Judah to ally with them. And so a has is given a choice. He has to sit down and figure out what, what do I do? And his choice is, okay, I can join with Israel and Syria against us, Syria. He doesn't think that's gonna work.

He doesn't think they're strong enough, the three of them to resist Assyria. And he's right. By the way, so then you can say, well, I can just say, no, I'm not going to do that. But when he does, and that's what he does initially, but when he does that Israel and Syria decide, well, let's kill him and go to war.

We'll go to war against that country. He tried to force them. We'll also assassinate him and put someone on the throne that will side with us. So now he's got a problem. I can't just ignore them because that's going to end up in my kingdom being destroyed enemy being killed. So his other choice is. To reach out to Assyria and say, come help me.

These guys want me to rebel against you. I don't want to, so please come destroy them and protect me. Now, the problem with that is going to be once he invites Assyria in, Assyria is going to stay, right? This is basically his surrendering to Assyria. And it's like letting the tiger in the room and the tiger will eat you.

And that, that is the choice. Yeah, that that's exactly what happens. But the interesting thing is that Isaiah comes to him with another option. Right? So he's gone through all the options that his brain, his counselors, or the world could offer him. And there aren't any fantastic options, so he's choosing the worst or the best of all the evils that he has as his options, right?

But Isaiah comes in with yet another option. And his option is, it's still do nothing, but it's do nothing and trust in God. Let God take care of this for you. Now there's that theme that we've been talking about, right? Just trust in God, He'll take care of this for you. So, that's the option that Isaiah gives him.

Does it make sense from a worldly point of view?

[01:02:03] Tammy Uzelac Hall: No, I was just thinking that, like, I can imagine people, cause we hear that even now in the world we live in and we're like, come on, seriously, I mean, there's gotta be a better option. Yeah. That's a powerful option right there. When you put, when you just juxtaposed it with what's going on, I really appreciate that you gave us the history for that.

Okay. So yeah, trust God, but really. Yeah.

[01:02:25] Kerry Muhlestein: And so often when God gives us the option that he wants us to take, it doesn't make sense. Right? Hey, how about you march around that city seven times and blow your horns? What? Totally. How does that work?

[01:02:36] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Right. How about you go dip seven times in that dirty, dirty river?

Yeah. What? That doesn't make sense. Yeah.

[01:02:43] Kerry Muhlestein: There are so many times and I've had it in my life where the prompting comes and you're like, I don't see how this works. That makes no sense to me. What are you asking? Right. Um, yeah. Uh, but God. I would actually feel bad if God always made sense to me because that would, that would imply that he's not much higher than I am.

And the thing is, he is higher than us. And so we should expect him to do things that don't make sense to us because he can do things that are way beyond what we can do, right? And he understands things way beyond us. That's where we're at. And I think it's so wonderful that we have embedded in this choice.

A prophecy about Christ, right. Now it's, I want to be clear, and we don't have time to go into this, but Isaiah, he usually prophesies in a way that applies to more than one time period. And this prophecy does apply in more than one way. I think that one of the fulfillments of this is Hezekiah, Ahaz's son.

who will show clearly that God is with them as they're miraculously spared. It's Isaiah's son, Maharshal Ahasuerus, that he'll talk about in the next chapter, who also, because the prophecies are fulfilled, makes it clear God is with them. But the most important fulfillment is Christ. So we have this in verse 14.

Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us. So embedded in this choice he has to make. is a prophecy about Christ, who is the one who makes it so that we can be covered, who can, when there are things out there that are beyond our ability to protect ourselves or to take care of, it's okay, Christ can handle that for us, as we've talked about so often.

So in the midst of Ahaz being given a choice like that, he gets a prophecy about Christ, who does that for all of us. I think there's a great poetic, both irony and fulfillment in there. But this becomes such a powerful lesson because Ahaz chooses to ignore Isaiah and God's promise that he'll take care of them.

And as a result, they are swallowed up by Assyria. And later, his son, Hezekiah, will have that same choice. And initially, he'll choose like his father. He'll say, I'm going to ask Egypt to help us. And then Hezekiah, or Isaiah, will get after him, and say, no, you need to trust in God, and so Hezekiah will. Trust in God.

Now, I always wonder, there's so much destruction in Judah and only Jerusalem is spared. I always wonder if Hezekiah had made that choice initially, would they have avoided all that? And we can't know, all right? I can't go back in history and change it. But the fact of the matter is that when he did choose God, there was miraculous sparing.

God did take on Assyria for them, and God won, right? So, this is a really powerful theme in all of Isaiah, this notion that we can either trust in the world, Or trust in God, and trusting in God doesn't make sense, and it's hard, but it's much easier than the choices of trusting in the world, because that always comes back to bite you, always.

And so that, we're paraphrasing this chapter a lot, but I think it is the major message of this section of Isaiah, especially 7 through 12, I would say, of Isaiah, which is 17 through 22 of 2 Nephi. This idea. Make your choice. Choose to trust in God or not. And that's really what Nephi is writing about in 1st and 2nd Nephi.

One of the guests I had on my podcast was Noel Reynolds, and he pointed out to this, and I'd never thought of it before, but he pointed out to us what I do now believe are Verses that kind of really set out very well the major theme of Nephi. Everything that Nephi is trying to teach us. And again, that's because of this family situation that he's in and what he's seen happening with his own family and what he has seen is going to happen in the future.

That kind of makes this become the theme for Nephi. So if we were to go to 1st Nephi chapter 10 and look at verses 17 through 19, and it says, And it came to pass after I, Nephi, having heard all the words of my father concerning the things which he saw in a vision. And also the things which he spake by the power of the Holy Ghost, which power he received by faith on the Son of God.

And the Son of God was the Messiah who should come. Note how he ties this all into Christ. I, Nephi, was desirous also that I might see and hear and know of these things by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well in times of old as in the times that he should manifest himself unto the children of men.

For he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world. If it so be that they repent and come into him for he that diligently seeketh shall find and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them by the power of the Holy ghost as well in these times, as in times as old, and as well in times of old, as in times to come, where for the course of law, the Lord is one eternal round.

You see, basically Nephi saying, when I learned these things from my father, I had a choice. I could ask God if they're true and follow it, or I could be like my brothers and not. I know what happens when you follow. You get the power of the Messiah. You get the power of the Holy Ghost in your life. But I also know what happens when you don't follow it.

You get cut off from the presence of God. That's the real theme of all of 1st Will you, when you hear, when you learn something from God, will you? Choose to ask Him and then follow Him, or will you be like Laman and Lemuel, who, when they hear these same things, Nephi asks them, have you asked of God? And they said, no, God doesn't make anything like that known unto us, right?

They've chosen not to even ask, and so they will follow the way of the world. As a result, that's the same choice that Ahaz has, right? In fact, Isaiah says to Ahaz, Ask a sign. God wants you to know that what I'm telling you is true, so ask a sign. And Ahaz says, I don't want a sign. Basically, he says, I'm not going to ask.

The same way Laman and Lemuel did. Why should I ask? God might tell me and I don't want to do that, so I'm not going to ask. Nephi and Isaiah are both, in all of their writings, as this major theme, trying to, just in painstaking ways, convince us there is truth, we're telling you truth, come to God, find out it's true, and then act on it, choose God, be protected by the Messiah, or choose the world.

And open yourself up to all the fury of the world and Satan and the misery that comes with it. And that's what both prophets are trying to teach us.

[01:09:13] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Well, and Kerry, I just connected this as you were talking, because how cool is this? Lest we think that Nephi and Isaiah were perfect and that they've never had to make that choice.

That is not true. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons why in 1st Nephi chapter 2 verse 16, Nephi very clearly writes and wants us to know. He says, I cried unto the Lord and behold, the Lord did visit me. He's like, I asked, I chose, and it says, and he did soften my heart that I would believe all the words which had been spoken by my father.

And to me, the implication is his heart must have been hard. Cause you can't soften an already soft heart. And so there had there for me, that was where his choice was. It was hard. And he had to make a choice right then. Who am I going to follow? And then we go into the words of Isaiah. And that was the chapter where you said we could spend an hour on that.

But that's when Isaiah says, I'm a man of unclean lips. Like, that is his repentance journey in that chapter. What chapter again was that? That is in 16 chapter 16. Yeah. Yeah. He had to choose. So we have examples of prophets who have had to choose. Every one of us have to choose. And so that's why I think their word is so powerful is they're not saying, I mean, I've been doing it my whole life, but good luck to you.

They're saying. I had to make a choice. I'm telling you right now, it's the best choice. That's why I love Lehigh so much. Oh my gosh. When Lehigh gets done talking to his sons in second Nephi and he's telling them to choose in chapter two, then he wants us to know he's like, and by the way, I chose the good part.

So I know how beneficial this can be. Profit after profit wants us to know I've, I've had to make the same choice as you. And here are the benefits if you do it. And so. I'm just going to add my testimony right now. I mean, I'm still in the process of choosing. I think we have to choose every day, but I can tell you this, the days that I choose Jesus, the days that I choose Christ are infinitely far better than the days that I don't.

And there have been times in my life where I've outright not chosen him. And so I will just witness. It really does work. Choosing him makes everything better.

[01:11:21] Kerry Muhlestein: And the beautiful thing is we've all had times where we've chosen to follow our worldly fallen nature. But the beautiful thing is God is always ready to take us back.

We'll get humbled for that, but he is always ready to take us back. Ad infinitum, right? There is no end to his willingness to take us back and then bring us back into all the beautiful blessings and promises of the covenant. All possible because of his son.

[01:11:48] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, yes. And those are some pretty good percentages, as you said.

With the word continually, that's the pretty good odds. So wow, Kerry, thank you. This was a phenomenal discussion. Phenomenal. Okay. So just gather your thoughts and we're overall, we're just going to talk about what was your main takeaway from today's episode. Anything that struck you or anything that you want to just remember.

[01:12:09] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah, I, I think even though I've taught this and written about this, you know, I have a book Learning to Love Isaiah that has some Book of Mormon highlights. So if, if people want some help understanding Isaiah, they can, uh, go there as well. But I've highly recommend I teach. Thank you. I teach classes about this.

I teach seminars on this. I've, I've, uh, written about it. And still today I'm learning as you and I talk together because the way that you help me put it together and then the way the Holy Ghost has been teaching us. And I have seen how much, more than ever before, I have seen how central Christ is in our being protected.

And the comfort and peace that comes from that, and I knew it before, but I'm seeing it in a new way today that there is real peace, protection, comfort, and sanctuary that comes if we just choose Christ, even when we mess up, if we just choose Christ. It's so beautiful and powerful.

[01:13:04] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yes. Oh, I really liked that part too, when we learned about the word sanctuary, that was powerful moment for us.

Um, I also liked that you taught us the chaos imagery and then I have written throughout my scriptures, the covenant corruption cycle. I thought that was so cool because we do the pride cycle in the book of Mormon and now I've added the covenant corruption cycle because that is real. So that was really cool for me.

I'm grateful you taught me that. So thank you.

[01:13:27] Kerry Muhlestein: It's just good, clean fun, isn't it?

[01:13:29] Tammy Uzelac Hall: It really is. There's no other way to explain what we've just done. Good and clean. So thank you so much. Okay. That's the end of our discussion. And we were so happy that those of you who joined us for Sunday on Monday and for the scriptures are real.

You're going to want to go check out his podcast as well. It's also on YouTube. Is that correct?

[01:13:46] Kerry Muhlestein: Yeah. Yeah. And I hope that my audience will come. So you'll have, you go to Deseret Bookshelf is how they can access yours. Right? So if you, and I love Deseret Bookshelf, I'll just say it helps me find clean entertainment.

It's so hard to find a book I can trust, but I know I trust everything that's on Deseret Bookshelf. And then you get access also to the wonderful things like your podcast Sunday on Monday is so worth it. So much good in that podcast. So I'd invite all of my audience to check that out as well.

[01:14:14] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Thank you, Kerry.

Oh, you're awesome. Well, likewise. That's fun. All right. What was your takeaway? Go join our group on Facebook or on Instagram to share what you've learned. And you can ask questions that everybody tries to answer. It's super fun. It's an amazing community that we have on Facebook. And then at the end of the week, we post a question.

So comment on the post that relates to this lesson and share your thoughts. You can get to both our Facebook and Instagram by going to the show notes for this episode at ldsliving. com slash Sunday on Monday. And it's not a bad idea to go there anyway. It's where we're going to have links to all the references, as well as a transcript of this entire discussion.

So go check it out. The Sunday on Monday study group is a Deseret bookshelf plus original brought to you by LDS living. It's written and hosted by me, Tammy Uzelac Hall and today our incredible study group participant was Kerry Muhlestein. And you can find more information about my friend at ldsliving. com slash Sunday on Monday. Our podcast is produced by Cole Wissinger and me. It is edited and mixed by Cole Wissinger and our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week. And oh, my friends, please remember, remember, remember that your wall is continually before him because you are his favorite.