Chapter 12—God's Strange Work
It should be clear that we are all on trial for how we respond to God and His word in spite of the many strange things that prevail. God’s act and strange act are precursors to His work and strange work.
An “act” by definition is the effect of an exertion of power, an action completed, a part in a play. Our endowment is a drama meant to be lived out in our personal lives, not received as a passive ritual experience.
Like Adam and Eve, we are called to recognize truth, discern evil and error, reject priestcraft and its ministers, hearken only to God, put faith in Him, prove our obedience, sacrifice worthily, and worship precisely in His revealed manner. We are exhorted to not deny God by failing to embrace His gospel as it was originally revealed—and to discern the ungodly who creep into leadership and congregations unnoticed.
Ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3–4 KJV, NIV)
“In the last days, false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied and the sheep shall be turned into wolves” (Didache 16). “They will set down for themselves doctrines which do not belong to God” (Apocalypse of Elijah 1:13). Hebrew Matthew says that in the latter days “false messiahs and false prophets will arise . . . [and] if it can be, they will come to lead the chosen astray.” Joseph’s translation agrees, warning that “there shall also arise false Christs and false prophets [who] shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch, that, if possible, they shall deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant” (Matthew 24:22, JST).
Isaiah warns that false prophets will teach error as truth and people will believe it. Leaders, prophets, apostles, or teachers only need to be insincere, unconverted, still condemned by vanity or unbelief, tied to the world, or have impure motives to be false—so this is prevalent.
Having given us the “lesser” portion of His word to “try the faith of my people” (3 Nephi 26:11), the Lord mourns that His gospel has been trampled and His holy word “transfigured” again (Mormon 8:33). “The lesser portion of [God’s] word proves fatefully insufficient to save these people” who have estranged themselves from Him. They will be “slain and taken captive.”
He offered peace and rest “but they would not listen . . . so now God will have to speak to his people through foreign oppressors who speak a strange language” (Isaiah 28:11–12, NLT).
The strange things in the land condemn the nation. The strange act is played out by those who claim to be His people. In His strange work, both will suffer greatly for their failure to honor His covenant terms.
A Covenant with Death
Given God’s astoundingly merciful and glorious offer to all mankind, it is shocking that very few seek Him to receive it. Temptations of riches, fame, or worldly acquisitions captivate almost all.
Through blindness (darkness) and failure to know the Lord’s voice (wickedness), many embrace darkness but call it light, and reject God’s light but call it evil. So “woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). They consider the tests, trials, and fruit of eternal life bitter, while finding Babylon’s fruit sweet.
God’s offer of eternal life “beginneth to be delicious” only if the seed of faith is planted in our hearts and nourished by His word and spirit.
God came and “found most of them blinded and straying” (1 Enoch 89:33). The cause? “When they abandoned the house of the Lord and his tower, they went astray in everything, and their eyes were blinded” (1 Enoch 89:54). Our dispensation has followed the same destructive path.
All that generation were wicked in the sight of the Lord, and they thus made every man his god, but they forsook the Lord who had created them. And there was not a man found in those days in the whole earth who knew the Lord (for they served each man his own God) except Noah and his household. (Jasher 9:9–10)
How was the whole earth blind to the coming flood that Noah vigilantly warned of? “They did know but they thought they were smart enough to prevent it . . . They knew all the mysterious arts” and advanced sciences. They were skilled “in the art of controlling the heavenly forces” of nature. Adam had knowledge of many mysteries “but he and his wife and their children did not practice it.” Later the wicked Enosh “saw the advantage of these arts and how the heavenly courses could be altered by them, and he and his contemporaries studied them and practiced magic and divination” which they passed down for many generations. They “were practiced for evil purposes by all the men of that time” of the flood. “Relying upon these arts, they defied Noah, saying that divine justice could never be executed upon them since they knew a way to avert it.” The righteous “sought to restrain them . . . without success.”
They say, “We have become very wealthy” so “now let us do what we have” planned (1 Enoch 97:8–9). “In face of an imminent danger, they believe they are potentially immortal,” having refuge from wrath and their exaltation made sure. Being “acquainted with the [dark] angels of fire” and water, they believed they “had means of preventing them from executing judgment on them. What they did not know was that God rules the world and that punishment proceeds from Him.”
God offers all of humanity a covenant of life, but most choose lies or deception, hoping for immortality without seeking God, finding truth, or being obedient. The penalty is death. “You will destroy those who tell lies. The Lord detests . . . deceivers” (Psalm 5:6). Both religious and political leaders mock God through their actions, living unafraid in false security, thinking they are protected while being ignorant of their fateful predicament—their covenant is with death, sealed by their dead works.
You boast, We have struck a bargain to cheat death and have made a deal to dodge the grave. The coming destruction can never touch us, for we have built a strong refuge made of lies and deception (NLT) . . . [God responds,]Your covenant with death will be annulled (NIV). And your agreement with hell shall not stand . . . Ye shall be trodden down (KJV). (Isaiah 28:18)
Spewing lies, spurning truth, and trusting in alliances and wealth is their work, not God’s. “All their deeds manifest unrighteousness and their power rests on their wealth . . . Everything that the righteous labor over, the sinners lawlessly devour . . . Your riches make you appear to be righteous, but your heart convicts you of being sinners . . . You have committed blasphemy and iniquity” and “unrighteousness [while] becoming servants of Satan” (1 Enoch 46:7, 53:2, 96:4, 94:9, 54:6).
Elijah and Enoch told Satan, “You attach yourself to the Saints because you are always estranged . . . You are always a stranger . . . You are a devil” who is “leading astray the people of God for whom you did not suffer.” The unsaved will soon mourn, “What have you done to us, O son of lawlessness . . . you alienated us from the Christ who created us” (Apocalypse of Elijah 4:8, 10, 12, 15, 5:10–11).
Jesus will return again to “purge His kingdom from wickedness” and rightfully claim His place as ruler, “and the Gentiles will be as much mistaken in regard to His second advent as the Jews were in relation to the first.” Many today don’t realize how much their actions reject Christ, His messengers, and His message. They fail to understand that “if Christ should come to the earth and preach such rough things as He preached to the Jews . . . this generation would reject Him for being so rough.”
Corrupt ordinances and doctrinal divergence brought destruction of the Jews, Jaredites, and Nephites after the Spirit withdrew. The Spirit ceased striving with Israel at the time of Malachi and his contemporaries (like Lehi), and the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. followed shortly thereafter. “The Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed” (Ether 15:19). Joseph prophesied the same for this generation:
[The] withdrawing of the Spirit of the God from the earth await[s] this generation until they are visited with utter desolation. This generation is as corrupt as the generation of the Jews that crucified Christ; and if He were here today, and should preach the same doctrine He did then, they would put Him to death.
It is just as much a national problem as it is an individual one. Their alliances and agreements will be broken because they forsook His covenant. Wo to the rebellious for “drawing up plans but not by me, for making alliances without my approval, only adding sin to sin . . . [They] have not inquired” of God (Isaiah 30:1–2, Gileadi). Instead, they “invited that slaughter and betrayed his place” so the Lord “abandoned that house of theirs and their tower” (1 Enoch 89:54, 56).
They were commanded to perform the law, and what they were commanded they did not wish to do . . . They went in their own pleasure and did not desire to perform my pleasure; they hoped that the service of idols would be established for them, and they did not hope for the service of my sanctuary. My sanctuary was little in their eyes.
Realizing that priests can err helps us understand how Abraham’s father Terah was led away by idolatry and imitative worship by priests who did “fain claim” to hold priesthood (Abraham 1:27). Paul taught that “evil men and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things you have learned . . . from the Holy Scriptures. . . for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:14–17, BSB).
“They Will Deny Me”
The Lord’s act sets things in order while His strange act allows the counterfeits, error, false prophets, delusion, inherited lies, precepts of men, and other opportunities needed to prove our faith and increase our discernment. This prepares us for greater things as we emerge victorious from all that is strange to become a spiritual house where His Spirit dwells. This is His work, the only true path to eternal life.
Through the strange act, God can bring to pass His act, the final preparations needed for the establishment of Zion. The world “cannot be blessed” unless He “make[s] bare his arm in the eyes of all the nations in bringing about his covenants and his gospel” (1 Nephi 22:7–11). To accomplish it, He raised “up a mighty nation among the Gentiles” to do “a marvelous work” that will be “of great worth” to Lehi’s descendants, the Gentiles, and the house of Israel in latter days. God’s wisdom is shown both in His strange work and His
great and marvelous work . . . [which] shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either (1) to the convincing to them unto peace and life eternal, or (2) unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity and also into destruction, both temporally and spiritually. (1 Nephi 14:7, numerals added)
The choice is ours. His act is the time we are given to “prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” for they have been perverted (D&C 65:1). “Wo to you who alter the true words and pervert the everlasting covenant and consider themselves to be without sin” (1 Enoch 99:2). Men must retain the given keys of knowledge and power because only “from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth” and fill it with truth, light, knowledge, and “wonderful works.” So “call upon the Lord that his kingdom may go forth . . . that the inhabitants may receive it and be prepared . . . to meet the kingdom of God.” In this He will “be glorified” (D&C 65:2, 4–6).
Behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)
The Lord’s strange act gave latter-day, covenant-making Gentiles a chance to receive the fulness of His gospel through a restoration of essential gospel truths, but they refused it. “When the times of the Gentiles shall come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness and it shall be the fulness of my gospel; but they receive it not; for they perceive not the light and they turn their hearts from it because of the precepts of men. And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (D&C 45:28–30). The Lord asks,
O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them . . . I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people. (2 Nephi 29:5)
Jesus knew that latter-day Gentiles would ‘sin against His gospel,’ ‘reject its fulness,’ and ‘deny’ Him after He restored the gospel to them (2 Nephi 28:32). Once they “willfully rebel,” ignore His calls to repent, and solidify their chosen path, the Lord’s gospel and covenant are taken to a remnant who will believe and “shall not deny that which you have received, but they shall build it up, and shall bring to light the true points of my doctrine, yea, and the only doctrine which is in me” (D&C 10:62). Rejecting His gospel consigns one to lesser glory and rejecting its fulness forfeits our right to “all things.” When the Gentiles fully ripen in iniquity, “the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). And so,
Thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you: At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them.
And then will I remember my covenant which I have made unto my people, O house of Israel, and I will bring my gospel unto them . . . and ye shall come unto the knowledge of the fulness of my gospel. But if the Gentiles will repent and return unto me, saith the Father, behold they shall be numbered among my people, O house of Israel. (3 Nephi 16:10–13)
This deserves careful consideration. Christ said the Gentiles would receive then reject the fulness and sin against His gospel. A diluted gospel prevents them from receiving the fulness. Their version still continues while His gospel is brought to believing remnants who will receive the fulness. His gospel’s truths, promises, powers, and protections are removed from them and given to those who seek truth and righteousness. Meanwhile Gentiles keep separating from God until “the fulness of iniquity” is reached and they are “swept off” (Ether 2:10).
God’s simple but crucial message to every wayward generation is that they must repent. Millennia ago, remnants were lost to truth and scattered when their forefathers became estranged from true points of Christ’s gospel. Ancient Hebrew pictographs of the word ‘strange’ mean to be scattered. Scattered means being lost to the right way to God. The gospel their fathers long ago refused now gathers them.
In speaking of the gathering, we mean to be understood as speaking of it according to scripture, the gathering of the elect of the Lord out of every nation on earth and bringing them to the place of the Lord of Hosts, when the city of righteousness shall be built, and where the people shall be of one heart and one mind when the Savior comes: yea, where the people shall walk with God like Enoch and be free from sin . . .
The Book of Mormon has made known who Israel is upon this continent. And while we behold the government of the United States gathering the Indians and locating them upon lands to be their own, how sweet it is to think that they may one day be gathered by the Gospel.
Refusing to seek the fulness while mistakenly believing we retain priesthood keys and power keeps us spiritually lost and wandering on strange roads. If we don’t seek Christ’s presence now, why would we seek Him in Zion? Zion cannot be established amidst deviation, dilution, distraction, defiance, or delusion.
Rejecting the fulness began long before today’s Gentiles ripened in iniquity. It occurred over centuries of people refusing to live higher laws and being distracted by cares of the world. Joseph asks us to observe
Christendom at the present day, and where they are, with all their boasted religion, piety, and sacredness while at the same time they are crying out against prophets, apostles, angels, revelations, prophesying, and visions, etc. Why, they are just ripening for the damnation of hell.
They will be damned, for they reject the most glorious principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and treat with disdain and trample under foot the key [of knowledge] that unlocks the heavens, and puts in our possession the glories of the celestial world. Yes, I say, such will be damned, with all their professed godliness.
Christ too rebuked priesthood leaders who “have taken away the key of knowledge, the fulness of the scriptures. Ye enter not in yourselves into the kingdom and those who were entering in, ye hindered” (Luke 11:52, JST). Instead of caring for their flock, they take away knowledge “that unlocks the heavens.” They will be cursed because they indulge but “feed not the flock . . . I am against the shepherds” (Ezekiel 34:2–3, 10).
Doctrines, ordinances, and laws that many covenant to obey with exactness will be measured against current laws and truths—and man’s innovations cannot be tolerated. Have God’s original words been preserved, honored, and adhered to sufficiently to stave off divine wrath?
Although God is “slow to anger” (1 Enoch 61:13), He gives an unalterable and irrevocable condition to remain protected on this land—“serve him, the true and only God” or “be swept off” (Ether 2:8).
Through Gentile rejection of the fulness, the lost “may be brought in or may be brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer.” His strange act scatters those who refuse truth while His act gathers the faithful to His gospel. In other words, His strange act causes a spiritual and literal scattering, while His act prepares the faithful for the spiritual and literal gathering. “There is no other way for the Saints to be saved in these last days [then by gathering through His gospel] as the concurrent testimony of all the holy prophets clearly proves.” A spiritual gathering, which occurs before a physical gathering in Zion, requires the keys of knowledge and fulness of priesthood that today’s covenant makers reject.
Jews were scattered and their house left unto them desolate because they refused to be gathered, that the fulness of the priesthood might be revealed among them, which can never be done but by the gathering of the people.
Being “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), His gospel went to “the Gentiles that the fulness shall be made known unto them” but they chose to follow strange gods. “Wo, saith the Father, unto the unbelieving of the Gentiles” because it “scattered my people” spiritually (3 Nephi 16:7–8).
In Zenos’s allegory, when Gentiles reach a fulness of iniquity the Lord’s vineyard will be pruned to cut off those who reject His offer:
Wherefore, let us go to and labor with our might this last time, for behold the end draweth nigh, and this is for the last time that I shall prune my vineyard. Graft in the branches; begin at the last that they may be first, and that the first may be last, and dig about the trees, both old and young, the first and the last; and the last and the first, that all may be nourished once again for the last time. (Jacob 5:62–63)
That “the last shall be first and the first shall be last” (1 Nephi 13:42) —bringing the first and last, the natural and adopted, together as one in holiness—is a major purpose of God’s work. Book of Mormon writers encourage us to come to Christ to be reconciled. Its title page explains that it is “written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile . . . Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed.” This message is of great worth so God’s prophets “labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God” (2 Nephi 25:23).
When the Jews rejected His gospel at the time of Christ, Paul took it to the Gentiles. In latter days, Gentiles have rejected the fulness so it will be taken to the House of Israel and its remnants. Only when the lost gather to Him—through a mighty change of heart and sanctification—will Zion be established.
When Joseph asked God what was meant by Zion “loosing herself from the bands of her neck” (Isaiah 52:2), he was told: “The scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen; which if they do, the promise of the Lord is that he will speak to them or give them revelation . . . The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her [of losing the right way to Him] or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles” (D&C 113:9–10).
Israel’s chosen and Lehi’s descendants will remain lost to truth until the fulness of Gentile iniquity comes and His gospel is brought to the willing who have “been lost from its body in a strange land” (Alma 26:36). God orchestrates these things so that believing remnants may
come to the knowledge of their fathers and know the promises of the Lord, that they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name, that through their repentance they might be saved. (D&C 3:20)
God’s love for us is so great that even strange things can be used for our good if we are willing. He cannot interfere in our freedom to choose for ourselves but these acts are prophesied because He “knows the end from the beginning” (Abraham 2:8). God preserves agency while bringing to pass events needed for the exaltation of those who seek it—those who discern good from evil, light from darkness, truth from error, priesthood from priestcraft, purity from corruption, and the wise from the foolish to receive the knowledge and power necessary for eternal life.
[God created] both things to act and things to be acted upon. And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man . . . it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life . . . The Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other. (2 Nephi 2:14–16)
Without opposition, “righteousness could not be brought to pass,” neither could God “do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” (Isaiah 28:21).
The Saints never could be prepared to receive the glory that is in reserve for them without devils to help them to get it. We are obliged to know and understand [the power of God and the devil], one as well as the other, in order to prepare us for the day that is coming and for our exaltation. Some of you may think that this is a [strange] principle, but it is true . . .
Nephi and others taught that we actually need evil in order to make this a state of probation. We must know the evil . . . [and] know and understand the opposition that is in all things, in order to discern, choose, and receive that which we do know will exalt us to the presence of God. You cannot know the one without knowing the other.
Holiness comes when evil loses its power over us, so exposure to evil is beneficial only if we resist its influence. Writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls glorify God for His work: “All these things thou didst establish in thy wisdom. Thou hast appointed all these things in the mysteries of thy wisdom to make known thy glory to all.”
Truth abhors the works of injustice and injustice hates all the ways of truth. And their struggle is fierce . . . The spirits of truth and injustice struggle in the hearts of men and they walk in both wisdom and folly. He has allotted them to the children of men that they may know good and evil . . . but in the mysteries of His understanding and in His glorious wisdom, God has ordained an end for injustice, and at the time of the visitation He will destroy it forever. Then truth, which has wallowed in the ways of wickedness during the dominion of injustice until the appointed time of judgment, shall arise in the world forever.
True Servants and Sealed Books
“All these things are instruction of judgment, that they may know that our God shows them the right path in which they ought to walk.”
Knowledge comes with responsibility, so God’s true servants must impart truth so “the whole nation may be left without excuse” (D&C 123:6). Their faith, knowledge, and elect status are hidden to men, for they are righteous “wanderers in a strange land” (Alma 13:23), sent with a holy calling to preach saving principles in times of apostasy and darkness—times full of philosophies of men mingled with scripture, deception, false doctrine, and “inherited lies” (aka propaganda)—times that make finding the truth difficult, especially when unbelievers label it ‘disinformation.’
For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. (D&C 123:12)
When God’s message is refused and hearts stay hard, there is no other option: “They brought those blinded sheep and they were all judged and found to be sinners” (1 Enoch 90:26). Most people love darkness not because it’s evil, but because it allows them to stay comfortably asleep, shutting out the light. Closing our eyes to truth makes us blind. Because blindness prevents eternal life, we must open our eyes to truth: Let them awake and arise and come forth and not tarry, for I, the Lord, command it” (D&C 117:2). The “honorable men” who “were blinded by the craftiness of men” will “receive of his glory, but not of his fulness” (D&C 109:75–76). Nothing and no one can stop us from seeking and obtaining knowledge of—or from—God, so there is no justifiable excuse.
Repent, repent, is the voice of God to Zion; and strange as it may appear, yet it is true, mankind will persist in self-justification until all their iniquity is exposed, and their character past being redeemed, and that which is treasured up in their hearts be exposed to the gaze of mankind . . . If it is not detected and driven from you, it will ripen Zion for the threatened judgments of God.
Around 600 b.c., Lehi was one of “many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.” Lehi received a glorious vision of God on His throne surrounded by twelve who followed Him. The first “gave unto him a book and bade him that he should read . . . As he read he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations.” After the Lord showed Lehi many “great and marvelous things” including “the destruction of Jerusalem, he went forth among the people and began to prophesy and to declare unto them concerning the things which he had both seen and heard” (1 Nephi 1:4–14, 18).
And “the Jews did mock him because of the things which he testified of them; for he truly testified of their wickedness and their abominations; and he testified [of] the things which he saw and heard and . . . read in the book . . . and they sought his life that they might take it away” (1 Nephi 1:19–20). So God preserved Lehi and his family by guiding them to a promised land on the American continent.
After God “ordained Noah after his own order and commanded him that he should go forth and declare his Gospel,” Noah called “upon the children of men that they should repent; but they hearkened not unto his words” and sought to take away his life (Moses 8:18–20). Enoch also “read the book of all the actions of people and of all humans who will be on the earth for the generations of the world” (1 Enoch 81:2) then
went forth in the land, among the people, standing upon the hills and the high places, and cried with a loud voice, testifying against their works; and all men were offended because of him. (Moses 6:37)
Samuel the Lamanite was considered evil for preaching Christ’s gospel. Abinadi was killed for preaching hard words to a wicked ruler and his high priestly council who were in dire need of returning to the Lord’s way (Mosiah 12–17). “He hath a devil” was the railing accusation against John the Baptist. The righteous Amulek was also called “the child of the devil.” Even Jesus Christ’s mighty miracles were attributed to the spirit of the devil by both people and priests.
If a prophet come among you and declareth the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out, and seek all manner of ways to destroy him. Yea, you will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil. (Helaman 13:26)
The inability to discern truth from error or distinguish messengers of God from those preaching a mingled gospel will damn us. “Wo unto them that turn aside the just for a thing of naught and revile against that which is good, and say that it is of no worth! For the day shall come that the Lord God will speedily visit . . . and in that day that they are fully ripe in iniquity they shall perish” (2 Nephi 28:16). Their outer works show worship, but inwardly they are strangers to Him. “This people draw near unto me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear towards me is taught by the precepts of men” so they cannot receive greater things (2 Nephi 27:25).
Men in Enoch’s time “erected synagogues and colleges, and placed in them scrolls and rich ornaments . . . but they did it to set themselves up for a light and for the honors of men; and in such a way that the powers of evil prevailed over Israel.” This is the definition of priestcraft, which exists “that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion” (2 Nephi 26:29). God warns that priestcraft, and this attitude, will prevail in the last days. “My vineyard has become corrupted every whit; and there is none which doeth good save it be a few; and they err in many instances because of priestcrafts, all having corrupt minds” (D&C 33:4). What faithful servants of God consider the most glorious of all things is tossed aside and mocked by those who “knew not that God could do such marvelous works, for they were a hard-hearted and a stiff-necked people” (Alma 9:5).
“What has been shall be again” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Records of evil deeds, works of darkness, and hidden sins will again be revealed, exposed, and “read upon the house tops . . . by the power of Christ; and all things shall be revealed” which “ever have been among the children of men, and which ever will be, even unto the end of the earth” (2 Nephi 27:11).
“The Lord hath poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes and covered your heads” (Isaiah 29:10). “All prophecy has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed” that the learned cannot read, for “discernment from their understanding shall be hid.” Their “stupefaction was the self-inflicted punishment of the dead works with which the people mocked God and deceived themselves.”
“To be learned is good [only] if they hearken to the counsels of God” (2 Nephi 9:29) but erring Ephraimites “have stupefied themselves spiritually til they are like men who are too drunk to see what they are doing . . . The prophetic word is a sealed book” that is foreign (strange) to them. Sealed books cannot be read or understood by those who don’t have His Spirit. Sealed is not just a physical seal. The writing itself is incomprehensible if its reader does not have the eyes to see or understand.
The learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work. (2 Nephi 27:20)
Scripture continues to be taken lightly so “the Lord hath cast among you the spirit of error and hath hidden from you the [true] prophets . . . All prophecy is become unto you as the words of a book which is sealed.” A seal designates authority and must be transmitted without error or misstep to its intended recipient. A physical seal could be broken by anyone, but God’s sealed works are hidden from all except those to whom He reveals it to protect the sacred records from tampering and misunderstanding. Whether they are sealed by symbol, or physically, or with “a language that cannot be read” without interpreters (Ether 3:22) is God’s decision.
Anciently, Ether sealed his record, “the interpretation thereof,” and “the interpreters [Urim & Thummim], according to the commandment of the Lord” (Ether 4:5). The interpreters, which only work through divine means, protect the contents and allow God’s chosen “seer,” to “look and translate all records that are of ancient date, and it is a gift from God . . . and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that which he ought not and he should perish” (Mosiah 8:13).
“The things which shall be done among them . . . shall be written and sealed up in a book, and those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not have them, for they seek to destroy the things of God” (2 Nephi 26:17). Only to those who “repent of their iniquity and become clean before the Lord” (Ether 4:6) will they be given. The few who receive sacred records know “a great mystery is contained within these plates, and these interpreters [Urim and Thummim] were doubtless prepared for the purpose of unfolding all” things to those who seek Him (Mosiah 8:19). It requires revelation—the very thing Satan seeks to stop through Babylon’s enticing distractions.
The Lord’s “great and marvelous” works are “unsearchable . . . and it is impossible that man should find out all His ways. And no man knoweth of His ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God” (Jacob 4:8). After Nephi read, he was told to
seal up the book again and hide it unto Me . . . until I shall see fit in mine own wisdom to reveal all things unto the children of men. For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith. (2 Nephi 27:22–23)
Sealed writings “bind up the testimony [and] seal the law among my disciples” (Isaiah 8:16). Since Adam, God commanded that a record be kept of the works of all people. Ancient records “from the dust” (Isaiah 29:4) play a large part in His work. Isaiah 28–29 describe His work and strange work, detailing events of the Book of Mormon’s coming, an account written long ago on the American continent, to be another testament of Christ, a second witness to the Bible for the “convincing of Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ,” as the Book of Mormon’s title page declares. Other works like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch, Nag Hammadi, and others have been discovered fairly recently. Like the Book of Mormon, their messages are compatible with Biblical teachings of Jesus and serve as additional witnesses to God’s great work. “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (D&C 6:28).
“The things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of wickedness and abominations of the people . . . for the book shall be sealed by the power of God and the revelation which was sealed” will be reserved “until mine own due time” because it reveals “all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof” (Isaiah 29:10, JST).
Divine records condemn sinners, vindicate the faithful, destroy the wisdom and understanding of the learned, restore lost truths, and expose all evil deeds.“When His hidden things are revealed to the righteous, the sinners will be judged” (1 Enoch 38:3). All who do not repent have reason to fear. “You will have no unrighteous deed unhidden” (1 Enoch 98:6). “These things must surely be made known and all things which are hid must be revealed upon the housetops” (Mormon 5:8). “The rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops and their secret acts shall be revealed . . . by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days” (D&C 1:3–4).
God’s Strange Work
“When the time cometh that evil fruit shall again come into my vineyard” (Jacob 5:77) confirms that modern apostasy is real. Jacob 5 summarizes God’s strange act and work. Isaiah wrote of Ephraimite decline because of man’s perpetual ‘spirit of deep sleep’ followed by a terrible destruction of multitudes destroyed as chaff (Isaiah 28-30).
Believers are to build God’s house so He can dwell among them. Joseph began its preparations but his successors quickly got distracted by money “exchangers” and speculation, believing that “enough” had been done, for “what need hath my lord of this tower?” since they are ‘blessed’ with riches? Nephi strongly warns against this false belief that “the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work and he hath given his power unto men” (2 Nephi 28:5) when more is required.
Jesus was “troubled because of the wickedness of the people” (3 Nephi 17:14). Rebuke comes to all who “dig deep to hide their plans from the Lord. In darkness they do their works and say, Who sees us and who will know?” God warns, “I know their works and their thoughts” and “you have turned things upside down” (Isaiah 29:15–16, Berean, 66:18).
What made the world of Enoch so singularly depraved as to invite total obliteration was the deliberate and systematic perversion of heavenly things to justify wickedness.
Tribulation punishes the wicked and will hopefully “convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:14–16). God saved only the righteous from “the flood upon the world of the ungodly,” as He did while “turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes [and] condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:4–6).
“Satan did stir them up to do iniquity continually . . . [to] harden the hearts of the people against that which was good and against that which should come” (Helaman 16:22)—Christ and Zion. But “they seek not the welfare of Zion,” refuse light and truth, walk after their own lusts, aspire to power, greedily pursue gain, and seek counsel from others instead of God. All must “labor for Zion for if they labor for money they shall perish” (2 Nephi 26:29, 31). Those who “fight against Zion” (2 Nephi 27:3) meet their fate in terms Isaiah likens to a nightmare (Isaiah 29:7). “There went forth a curse upon all people that fought against God” (Moses 7:15).
[When they] dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord—having a knowledge of . . . the great and marvelous works of the Lord [and] having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise—behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. (2 Nephi 1:10–11)
They “treated lightly” (D&C 84:54) warnings: “If this highly favored people of the Lord should fall into transgression and become a wicked and an adulterous people . . . He will no more preserve them by his matchless and marvelous power, as he has hitherto” done (Mosiah 1:13).
Holiness cannot coexist with corruption. “The scene ends with an ominous prophecy of judgment (Isaiah 28:11–13). God is going to address His people in a strange foreign [way] and it will not be the innocuous gobbledygook of their own drunken priests and prophets.”
In an unexpected way, His strange work lets heathen nations storm against those who rejected His gospel fulness and dishonored His covenant. It is strange because He must destroy some of His own works to accomplish His greater work. Previously He spared no effort to fight for His people but because they insist on clinging to strange things, He now must fight against them. It is a necessary cleansing to prepare the way for His work: “that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” (Isaiah 28:21). His work has permanence, but His act will come to an end.
In His time, God will measure what they built. A “measuring line and plumb are used to check an uncompleted new building, but are also used to find out whether an old building is fit for demolition.”
“Lawlessness was not sent upon the earth; but men created it by themselves” so “He will weigh their deeds.” The cosmos are “weighed according to their light” and “power” (1 Enoch 98:4, 61:8, 43:2, 60:12), so man should expect to judged by the same. The wicked will be found lacking.
Evil exists by the decision of God. It exists because God decided that the struggle against it will help you [in your spiritual evolution] and you will recognize the truths, and at the end the wickedness will disappear as smoke, and the world will be full of [God’s] truths.
God’s reasons are given: blindness, hardness of hearts and no genuine conversions among those to whom the promises and covenant have been made. “He that fighteth against Zion . . . are they who are the whore of all the earth; for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God” (2 Nephi 10:16).
The Lord “would have to act in opposition to His gracious purpose. He would have acted towards His own people as He once acted towards their foes. This was the most paradoxical [strange] thing of all that they would have to experience.” So “when the day and the power and the punishment and the judgment come, which the Lord of Spirits has prepared for those who do not worship” Him but “take his name in vain . . . that day has been prepared for the elect, a covenant, [but] for the sinners, a visitation” of His wrath (1 Enoch 60:6).
God “will rise up to overthrow his own people.” Isaiah gives two examples of shameful defeats as a type: First, he mentions where David smote Goliath and said, “The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters” (2 Samuel 5:20). The second references the valley of Gideon where five Canaanite kings who fought Joshua were destroyed by hail (Joshua 10). These things are examples, written for our instruction. We must “liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Nephi 19:23).
Their covenant with death lets them believe “the overflowing scourge shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge and under falsehood have we hid ourselves” but they are gravely mistaken, for “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters shall overflow the hiding place” (Isaiah 28:15, 17).
“Those who put their trust in lies or human powers will be swept away . . . Those who trust in God and His righteousness will stand secure.” Their evil plan, prepared in utmost secrecy and based on an alliance with Egypt (the world), is further advanced and projected openly (Isaiah 30). Almost all have been deceived so Isaiah condemns what he can no longer prevent. “The multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly” (Isaiah 29:5). God’s “mighty and strong one” will deliver the blow. “His mighty hand will strike them down with the force of a hailstorm or a mighty whirlwind or an overwhelming flood” (Isaiah 28:2, KJV, CEV).
A whirlwind is a powerful symbol of destruction. When Christ was crucified “the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds, and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth” (3 Nephi 8:12). Those who “fall away . . . are crucifying the Son of God all over again” (Hebrews 6:6, NIV) so “strong and hard strokes come from the Lord, like a storm of hail in a whirlwind, like a storm of strong, overflowing waters so the [invaders] will come upon them and exile them from their land to another land with the sins which are in their hands.”
If my people shall sow filthiness, they shall reap the chaff thereof in the whirlwind; and the effect thereof is poison. (Mosiah 7:30)
“Vengeance cometh speedily . . . as a whirlwind,” says the Lord. “Upon my house shall it begin and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord. First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house” (D&C 112:24–26). Only those with foundation on “the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ” will not fall (Helaman 5:12).
They shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them. But behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his. (Alma 26:6)
How simple it is: “Our only confidence can be in God; our only wisdom obtained from Him; and He alone must be our protector and safeguard, spiritually and temporally, or we fall.” God’s strange work reverses His saving actions but He never delights in it. “He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone” (Lamentations 3:33, NIV), but they have chosen death. Death and destruction are a tragic part of His strange work, “for God’s proper work is to make alive.”
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV)
Adam’s desire for true messengers required that he test and try them. The Lord rewards those who “hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars” (Revelation 2:2). Such “liars and hypocrites shall be proved by them, and they who are not apostles and prophets shall be known” in the end (D&C 64:39). “If any man shall seek to build up himself, and seeketh not my counsel, he shall have no power and his folly shall be made manifest” (D&C 136:19). Jacob 5 contains imagery of God preparing His own apostles, a title that references a literal knowledge of God, not strictly an institutional office or calling.
His act prepares His apostles to help “prune my vineyard for the last time.” This preparation is necessary “that I may bring to pass my strange act,” which could not be finished until at least a few had correct knowledge of His right path and ordinances to preach to believing remnants.
“Children of Zion” are to “importune at the feet” of their leaders and, if they are not heeded, “then will the Lord arise and come forth out of His hiding place and in his fury vex the nation . . . and cut off those wicked, unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint them their portion among hypocrites and unbelievers, even in outer darkness” (D&C 101:86–91).
The Lord gives us freedom to choose, even if it tragically results in destruction of temporal or spiritual things. None are spared the risk of falling. With numerous calls to repent and come to Him, ultimately we will receive what we have chosen, that which our heart has desired most.
Thus saith the Lord God, Cursed shall be the land, yea, this land, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, unto destruction, which do wickedly, when they are fully ripe; and as I have said so shall it be; for this is the cursing and the blessing of God upon the land, for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. (Alma 45:16)
“Who Shall Stand?”
“To whom shall he teach knowledge?” (Isaiah 28:9) when people refuse it? It’s a costly mistake. The nation’s spiritual apathy comes from the “spirit of deep sleep” that they have chosen (Isaiah 29:9–14). “Those who understand will not sleep and will listen” to wisdom and feast on His word, which “will be more pleasing to them than fine food.” Only “those who sleep not” and watch can “stand in His presence” (1 Enoch 82:3, 39:13).
Because of flattery and subtle temptation, many do not recognize or embrace truth so Malachi asks, “Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?” (Malachi 3:2). Christ asked the same question (3 Nephi 24:2). The answer is in the parable of ten virgins.
Only the wise who can “stand the fire” endure. The wise differ from the foolish because, having oil in their lamp, they use the Spirit to discern strange things. The wise are defined by three specific requirements:
For they that are wise and (1) have received the truth, and (2) have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and (3) have not been deceived—verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day. (D&C 45:57, numerals added)
They are not deceived because they discern, being armed with truth and the Spirit. Discernment is a gift of the Spirit. The few who become wise are fortunate because in this trying time, “they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ” (2 Nephi 28:14).
In 1868, Heber Kimball asked ‘who shall stand when He appeareth?’ He urged people to obtain the gift of discernment because a critical period of testing was coming. Speaking in Salt Lake City, he warned,
We think we are secure here in the chambers of the everlasting hills . . . [but] the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God. Then, brethren, look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall; for I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming, and who will be able to stand?
This Church has before it many closed places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with glory. The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess a personal knowledge or witness will fall. If you have not got this testimony, you must live right and call upon the Lord, and cease not until you obtain it . . . The time will come when no man or woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within themselves. If you do not have the [actual] knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, how can you stand?
Joseph shared these concerns about delusion, division, tests, latter-day apostasy, and mixture of saints and enemies to God co-existing in churches and nation. The delusion is so subtle, skillful, and elusive that “we will be mixed up” unless we truly have the Spirit to discern.
The Bible agrees that the Ephraimites are guilty of “mix[ing] himself among the people. Ephraim is a cake not turned” (Hosea 7:8), trying to have one foot in God’s kingdom and the other in the world. Embracing the world leaves us “consumed by unhallowed fire . . . a cake burnt on one side to a cinder, and on the other left in a condition utterly unfit” for divine acceptance. Whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.
Too many so-called Christians . . . united in themselves hypocrisy and ungodliness, outward performance and inward lukewarmness; the one overdone, but without any wholesome effect on the other. The one was scorched . . . the other lukewarm; the whole worthless, spoiled irremediably, fit only to be cast away.
The fire of God’s judgment, with which the people should have been amended, made but an outward impression upon them, and reached not within, nor to any thorough change.
God’s great and marvelous work divides “either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds” (1 Nephi 14:7).
And so Joseph hoped that all would “spend none of their time in behalf of the world” because the “night would come when no man can work.” He was justifiably concerned that “the Saints will be divided, broken up, and scattered before we get our salvation secure; for there are so many fools in the world for the devil to operate upon, it gives him the advantage oftentimes.”
To overcome, we must “rend the veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, then . . . when ye shall call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then shall [ye] know that the Father hath remembered the covenant which he made unto your fathers. And then shall my revelations which I have caused to be written by my servant John be unfolded in the eyes of all people” (Ether 4:15–16).
Therefore, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, yea, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid. (2 Nephi 27:26)
Footnotes and sources can be found HERE.