Chapter 6—Strange Brew
In spite of numerous warnings, people and nation “became more hardened and impenitent and more wild wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites—drinking in with the traditions of the Lamanites” (Alma 47:36). Young saw latter-day saints “drinking in the spirit of Babylon until one could hardly tell a Saint from” an unscrupulous person. Smooth words are easy to swallow.
“Drinking in” strange brew internalizes these dangers, making them part of who we are. Drinking in that which alters our perception will cause us to stagger then fall.
It is not only wine from a bottle that makes us drunk. The Dead Sea scrolls equate wine to wealth and an insatiable desire for riches. Isaiah describes Ephraimite covenant makers as drunk with ambition, error, delusion, hypocrisy, deceit, injustice, greed, social evils, apostasy, or pride.
So “woe to him who gives the crown to the proud . . . who are wounded [‘annihilated’] with wine.” Sinners exchange a future “diadem of joy” and “crown of glory” (Isaiah 28:5) for temporal ‘security’ that can’t endure.
Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower . . . [to] them that are overcome with wine!
Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet. (Isaiah 28:1–3)
This warning is to latter-day people who make covenants but fail to honor them. Isaiah describes them as “drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink” (Isaiah 29:9). Being intoxicated with pride and delusion allows them to be secure in their minds while they remain estranged from God. “How horrible it will be for the arrogant drunks of Ephraim” (Isaiah 28:1, God’s Word).
A prideful “soul which is lifted up is not upright in [God] . . . He transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man” (Habakkuk 2:4–6). They are drunk with the wine of vanity, unbelief, error, and ignorance. Foolishly, they believe philosophies of men mingled with scripture because they do not seek God to confirm the truth. Their progressive reforms and tainted traditions are so strongly held and widely accepted that Nephi said all have “gone out of the way, they have become corrupted” (2 Nephi 28:11).
Many eagerly seek more wine but very few thirst for the word of God. A famine “of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11) exists in spite of the promise that if we come to the Lord, “ye shall hunger not, neither shall ye thirst” (Alma 32:42). Instead of having God’s spirit, they are asleep, blind, intoxicated, and unaware. Awakening to truth is required to open the eyes of our understanding. Setting aside His eternal laws or attempting to reorder what He revealed invalidates the covenant and keeps us in ignorance. Isaiah describes their condition as “hiccuping in drunken stupor” (Isaiah 28:7, NEB).
Ephraim in particular resists truth and remains in unbelief. Rending the veil of unbelief is essential to removing condemnation. By ridding ourselves of unbelief, we can overcome damning traditions and receive truth, light, and knowledge of God. “For where God is . . . there is sobriety.”
To shake off inebriating wine, we are commanded to awaken to several crucial truths. First, “awake to a remembrance of the awful situation of those who have fallen in transgression” (Mosiah 2:40). That is, we must realize that until we are sanctified in Christ, we are the fallen, being unredeemed and still condemned. We are the lost prodigal son still in need of reconciliation with our Father.
Second, “ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation because of this secret combination which shall be among you” (Ether 8:24). Secret combinations, or groups bound by pact or mindset, perform “secret works of darkness” and are stirred up by “the father of lies” himself (2 Nephi 9:9). “The Lord worketh not in secret combinations” (Ether 8:19). Even Christians eventually “did reject all the words of [true] prophets because of their secret society and wicked abominations” (Ether 11:22).
US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Benson strongly encouraged us to apply these warnings to our current day and protect the Constitution’s divine rights. In one of his last addresses, Benson warned,
A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedoms of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world.
Unfortunately, his words were brushed aside. Such a poignant warning has yet to be repeated from his successors. Similar tragedies among ancient Jaredite and Nephite civilizations caused their utter destruction so God commanded Moroni to include this crucial message for our day.
Because of error and delusion, most reject teachings of true prophets so judgments will come. The Lord “must needs destroy the secret works of darkness, and of murders, and of abominations” (2 Nephi 10:15). Utter destruction comes to those people and nations who support their existence. “Whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed” (Ether 8:22).
Third, we should awaken “to a remembrance of [our] duty,” even “to a sense of your duty to God” (Alma 4:3, 7:22) to walk up to His covenants and fight against evil. These three awakenings urge us to realize that our own spirituality is at risk, to be aware of the depth and breadth of evil in the land, and to fulfill our obligations to God.
We may think we are fully awake as we begin to recognize the shocking reality of our terrible predicament, but just as light comes in varying wattages, so too are there degrees of awakening. What we think is all the light and knowledge needed might be dim compared to what lies in store for the faithful seeker who perseveres.
As we become cognizant of our real spiritual standing and learn the true nature of God, we begin to see the breadth, depth, and source of the darkness and recognize that evil has so tightly bound God’s world. We must step up to our duty to “waste and wear out our lives bringing to light the hidden things of darkness” because so much is at stake (D&C 123:13). Satan greatly desires that truth and ordinances be modified because they are the source of priesthood power. Diluting truth and contaminating the path to God is essential for Satan’s plan to succeed. Dilution brings drunkenness, delusion, and damnation.
What causes us to stagger and remain condemned in deep sleep? Ephraimites mix God’s way with the ways of the world. “Thy wine is mixed with water” (Isaiah 1:22). We are condemned and cursed for mixing liquor, meaning our spiritual drunkenness is from multiple factors. “Woe to those who are valiant at drinking wine and champions at mixing liquor!” (Isaiah 5:22, Gileadi).
Ephraimites are drunk day and night from believing error and following wayward leaders whose “wine is the venom of serpents” (Deuteronomy 32:33). Smooth wine poisons us “like a viper” (Proverbs 23:31). Jesus called modern day unbelievers and hypocritical church leaders ‘vipers.’ Their poisonous venom brings spiritual death and damning judgments.
So “woe to him who causes his neighbors to drink, who pours out his venom to make them drunk . . . and cause them to stumble.” They mingle truth with the poison of error and are led by a priest who “walked in the ways of drunkenness that he might quench his thirst. But the cup of the wrath of God shall confuse him.” Compare that cup to “Babylon,” which is “a golden cup . . . that made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine” and are deranged (Jeremiah 51:7). Even those who call themselves God’s people indulge heavily and are drunk.
In God’s sight, their preeminence is jaded; the crowns on their heads are make-believe. Their wealth has turned them into ‘fat proud opulent ones.’ They flaunt their affluence . . . The language symbolizes a real condition, warranting a woe or curse. The people of Ephraim, thus given to opulence, live in a state of carnal security, resembling drunkards overcome with wine.
Their intoxication masks the dangerous reality that they are choosing death instead of life, damnation not exaltation. They will fall but not arise because they will not turn to God. Their corrupted, overly-legalistic gospel causes them to “fall away,” eventually leading them to reject the very Christ they await—“crucifying the Son of God all over again” by “subjecting Him to open shame” (Hebrews 6:6, Berean).
They became “a congregation of traitors, those who departed from the way.” As “blind men groping for the way,” they “sought smooth things and preferred illusions.” They are a “congregation of traitors” who eagerly ingest smooth wine while refusing “the true vine” (John 15:1). Swallowing smooth words is easier than accepting hard truth, but it comes with damning consequences.
Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind will imagine confusing things. (Proverbs 23:30–33)
God gave Ephraim “great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing” (Hosea 8:12). Ephraim “hath mixed himself among the people . . . Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:8–9).
Remember, the Habakkuk scroll equates wine that makes them drunk with the pursuit of wealth. This Dead Sea scroll also chastises “the Wicked Priest,” the leader of the church, “whose ‘heart was exalted’ when he came to power so that he ‘forsook God and dealt treacherously with the ordinances for the sake of wealth’.” He also “amassed the wealth of the men of violence who rebelled against God and took the wealth of nations, adding to himself iniquity and guilt.” For “wine as well as wealth was a means of the Wicked Priest’s undoing, for he ‘walked in the ways of drunkenness to quench his thirst’.”
Almost all are intoxicated by Babylon’s temptations so only appoint leaders “worthy of the Lord . . . not lovers of money” (Didache 15). Enticements of riches, extravagant living, supposed riches, and carnal security intoxicate and distract people while their spiritual and national leaders lead them down a dangerous path. Wealth, pride, and indulgence pacify the whole nation, who is oblivious to their fateful predicament that their strange laws and doctrine, self-serving policies, and ungodly alliances have endangered their lives and salvation.
Deceived and deluded, trusted “leaders of the people have led Egypt astray” (Isaiah 19:13, NLT). Egypt is a codename for modern America. “The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds as a drunken man staggers in his vomit” (Isaiah 19:14, ESV). Isaiah condemns hypocritical “mockers” (HCSB) and “foolish talkers” (God’s Word) “who preside over these people” (Isaiah 28:14, Gileadi). Decadence and deviance ruined previous dispensations and it is happening again in these latter days.
Their watchmen are altogether blind and unaware; all of them are but dumb watchdogs unable to bark, lolling seers fond of slumber. Gluttonous dogs, and insatiable, such indeed are insensible shepherds. They are all diverted to their own way, every one after his own advantage. Come, they say, let us get wine and have our fill of liquor. For tomorrow will be like today, only far better! (Isaiah 56:10–12, Gileadi)
Leaders charged to watch are blind, unable to see their error or understand the truth. While “in a spirit of deep sleep . . . ye have closed your eyes and ye have rejected [true] prophets. And your rulers and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity” (2 Nephi 27:5). While some ecclesiastical leaders may be called prophets, seers, or revelators, these titles are merely given by men if not accompanied by divine power and fruits. God bestows the gifts of seership, prophecy, and revelation only to those who qualify. He cannot honor our man-made titles if we remain asleep and do not seek His counsel. A council of deliberating priests is never a sufficient replacement for directly communing with God.
Such leaders and all who follow them are “out of the way” like those who begin on the path in Lehi’s dream but become lost “wandering in strange roads” (1 Nephi 8:32). “Priests that despise my name” teach a perverse version of His gospel that subtly leads people astray and causes them to question God’s indictment: “In what way have we despised thy name?” (Malachi 1:6). To Jesus, they are “blind leaders of the blind” (Matthew 15:13, JST), “blind guides” (Matthew 23:24), even the “council of the blind.” To Isaiah they are blind and “dumb watchdogs” (Isaiah 56:10). Paul ties dogs to evil works. “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers . . . put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:2–3, NIV). Figuratively a dog is a scavenger, a spiritual predator (H2965). “The dogs began to devour the sheep” and “were oppressing the sheep” (1 Enoch 89:42, 46) and so “the dogs” are kept outside the gate, having no “right to the tree of life.”
The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink.
They err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. (Isaiah 28:7–8)
“The dog is turned to his own vomit again” (2 Peter 2:22). Filthiness, vomit, and excrement tie to Malachi’s scathing rebuke of once-sacred rites that evolved to become “the dung of your solemn feasts” (Malachi 2:3). Unknown to them, God removed His name and power from their rituals. Their priesthood is preoccupied with other endeavors, unaware that idolatrous works must be rejected because they are not fully aligned with God’s will. Their tables of worship are full of filth and vomit, a symbol of regurgitated partially digested truths.
This imagery relates to the condemnation of the religious leaders in verse 7 as well as to verse 9, which deals with revelation. It says that the people are being polluted. Like food that is set out for eating, the “tables” signify not literal tables, but, symbolically, the vehicle for conveying spiritual food. Rhetorically, the idea of tables denotes books or tablets containing the word of God (cf Isaiah 30:8). The contents of these tables, however, are impure. They abound with partially digested truths, regurgitated for the people to consume. Or, they contain excrement—a chaos motif—wholly polluted matter that profits nothing.
In spite of the glorious rewards God offers, almost all choose to remain intoxicated, reject truth and light, refuse to repent, and trust in the arm of flesh. “Inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of” Babylon (Revelation 17:2; 18:3).
“They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence” (Proverbs 4:17), meaning ‘unjust gain or unrighteousness’ (H2555). Even sacramental emblems are corrupted (Malachi 1:7), adding to a growing list of priesthood abominations. Because they deviate from God’s appointed way, their works are not “pleasing unto him. Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted, for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord” (Hosea 9:4).
That there is “no place clean” (Isaiah 28:8) testifies to the breadth and depth of the defilement. “Your churches, yea, even every one have become polluted” (Moroni 8:36) in the last days and their temples have too:
They drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god. (Amos 2:8)
“They have all gone out of the way, they have become corrupted . . . Because of false teachers and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted” (2 Nephi 28:11–12). “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). His disciples mourn that “all [have] gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men” (2 Nephi 28:14). “Not every one who speaks in the Spirit is a prophet, but only if he holds the ways of the Lord” (Didache 11).
Being allowed to make covenants does not guarantee salvation, especially if hearts are hard and far from God. “That wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers” (D&C 93:39). Numerous opportunities to return to God are extended, but refused.
How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice . . . and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not! (D&C 43:25)
Tragically, believing erroneous philosophies of men, even if mingled with scripture, is the norm. “There shall be many which shall teach after this manner false and vain and foolish doctrines . . . They have all gone out of the way; they have become corrupted” (2 Nephi 28:9, 11). By neglecting their higher duties, priests cause people to lose knowledge.
Ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law. Ye have corrupted the covenant. (Malachi 2:8)
Without light and knowledge, their works are “in the dark” so God will bring about “the work of destruction” (Ether 8:23). It is no coincidence that Laban, a church leader who was out with the elders at night, was found sleeping and drunk, which justified his penalty of death (1 Nephi 3–4). Sleeping leaders cannot watch or warn of impending danger. Watching includes keeping and preserving what is given, but the holy ordinances of salvation have become tragic casualties of prideful indulgences. Not obeying with exactness leads to priestcraft.
O ye priests this commandment is for you . . . If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already because ye do not lay it to heart . . . Ye have not kept my ways but have been partial in the law. (Malachi 2:1–2, 9)
The delusion is so prevalent that people choose leaders and prophets who support erring ideologies. An Aramaic targum says, “They go astray after false prophets who prophesy to them by a spirit of deceit and teach them about wine and drunkenness.” Because “they are accustomed to go astray after false prophets,” their generation is cut off from truth. That is, those who embrace a perverted gospel may obtain hierarchal positions, like Ezekiel’s unclean shepherds. “A natural question that might arise would be, that if the Lord knew in advance that these men would fall, as he undoubtedly did, why did he . . . call them to such high office? The answer is: to fill the Lord’s purposes. For even the Master followed the will of the Father by selecting Judas.” How else will we learn to discern if we can’t test and try the messengers?
Perhaps it is His own design that faults and weaknesses should appear in high places in order that His Saints may learn to trust in Him and not in any man or men.
Paul warned we would wrestle “spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Unholy priests tread and “trample the Holy One under [their] feet” as they dismiss essential doctrines which hinders those on the path (Alma 5:51–57). Christ’s clear-cut principles of salvation have become watered down “to a meaningless mishmash, irrelevant to the daily life of the average individual.” Their presence in positions of influence perpetuates delusion and keeps the waters muddy.
If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and strong drink, he shall even be the prophet of this people. (Micah 2:11)
The loyalty of those who do not question the hierarchy’s reforms is rewarded, but faithful disciples of Christ’s doctrine are ridiculed or cast out. This rapid corrosion of truth also occurred when Paul preached of Christ in Athens. Religion had moved so far from what was revealed to Adam that Paul was accused of being “a setter forth of strange gods” who brought “strange things to our ears.” Although they were “very religious” (NIV), when Paul “observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription—To the unknown God—whom, therefore, ye worship. Though ye know him not, him declare I unto you” (Acts 17:18, 20, 22–23).
Paul counsels us “not to keep company . . . [of] a drunkard” even if he is “called a brother” in church (1 Corinthians 5:11). “Do not join those who drink too much wine,” for it leads to “a deep pit” and “multiplies the unfaithful among men” (Proverbs 23:20, 27–28, NIV).
Prideful shepherd priests busily build their kingdom but neglect their covenant duties to perfect the saints and offer acceptable sacrifice. Of the legitimate path to ascension they say, “What a weariness it is!” (Malachi 1:13) but they never tire of receiving praise or getting gain, which is the definition of priestcraft. They never tire of drinking in false traditions or spewing smooth words either.
Obtaining wealth consumes their minds so warning comes: “Woe to those that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night till wine inflame them!” (Isaiah 5:11). They “conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity” (Isaiah 59:4) but do not believe they sin. They are as Nephites, whose destructive cycle of prosperity and pride distracted them from their spiritual obligations and blinded them to their true standing with God.
How false and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men . . . Yea and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people . . . then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease and their exceedingly great prosperity. (Helaman 12:1–2)
Moroni’s serious rebuke of priestly pollutions (Mormon 8) and Ezekiel’s damning indictment of self-serving shepherds (Ezekiel 34) are no small matter.
O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!
Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride . . . How slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths! Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide. (Helaman 12:4–6)
Because unholy works prevent godliness, God “must needs destroy the secret works of darkness” (2 Nephi 10:15). Hypocrisy and dead works impede us from receiving knowledge of God. The only solution to “escape the pollutions of the world [is] through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 2:20).
This is eternal lives—to know the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. I am he. Receive ye, therefore, my law. (D&C 132:24)
Rejecting knowledge of God keeps us condemned. These bold rebukes are directed to leaders in positions of influence and all who follow them, including those who have access to, but do not utilize, keys meant to convey knowledge.
Judgment comes because “ye have taken away the key of knowledge. Ye entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luke 11:52). Joseph expounds, “For ye have taken away the key of knowledge, the fulness of the scriptures” (Luke 11:52, JST). He warned, “We are liable to fall . . . and except the Church receive the fulness of the scriptures, they would yet fail.” Joseph equates the key of knowledge to the fulness of scripture so we can rephrase it: ‘We are liable to fall . . . and except the Church receive the key of knowledge, they would yet fail.’ Still, the church denies the key of knowledge, which includes the personal ministration of Jesus Christ. In 2014 Dieter Uchtdorf taught that a personal manifestation of Christ is no longer necessary. “You do not need to see the Savior, as the Apostles did, to experience the same transformation.”
This ordinance is the knowledge of God, so denying the key to it denies the fulness. God and His path does not, and cannot, change. He is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34), so requirements are the same for everyone. Minimizing saving doctrine hinders understanding of God’s true plan and obstructs us from receiving the fulness.
Teachers of lies have smoothed thy people with words and false prophets have led them astray. They perish without understanding for their works are in folly . . . Smooth things [they speak] to thy people. They withhold from the thirsty the drink of knowledge . . .
They seek thee with a double heart and are not confirmed in Thy truth.
They come to inquire of thee from the mouth of lying prophets deceived by error who speak with strange lips to thy people . . . They hearken not to Thy voice, nor do they give ear to Thy word. Of the vision of knowledge they say, ‘It is unsure,’ and of the way of Thy heart, ‘It is not (the way)’.
Failing to ask God directly for truth keeps us estranged from Him. So few truly seek God’s counsel that Isaiah asks, “Whom shall he give instruction? Whom shall he enlighten with revelation? . . . [by ‘strange lips’ (ESV)] and a strange tongue must he speak to these people . . . but they would not listen” (Isaiah 28:9–12, Gileadi). The double reference to strange suggests that covenant makers prefer or only understand strange things.
Business and busyness are easily rationalized as duties in a perverse gospel, but our sacred responsibilities involve far more. It was contemplative Mary, not busy Martha, who obtained “that good part” (Luke 10:42). We must worthily appear before Him and be taught by Him to receive eternal life. “Seek the face of the Lord always, that in patience ye may possess your souls and ye shall have eternal life” (D&C 101:38).
Scripture repeatedly addresses our serious obligation to seek these things, but many refuse. “I have said these things unto you that I might awaken you to a sense of your duty to God, that ye may walk blameless before him that ye may walk after the holy order of God” (Alma 7:22).
Failing to walk in righteousness perpetuates error and obscures His path so God charges the drunken, blind, self-indulgent priests and their followers with four things: (1) they “departed” from the right way by altering doctrines and changing ordinances; (2) instead of turning people to the Lord, their lack of understanding caused them to “stumble at the law”; (3) they corrupted “the covenant”; and (4) they “have not kept my ways but have been partial in the law” and offerings (Malachi 2:8–9).
They are “partial” because they do not walk up to every covenant fully, which puts them in Satan’s power. Because their sacrifice is not whole, it is not holy. Their ignorance and apathy in performing covenant duties wearies God, and He doesn’t want their half-hearted rituals. He asks,
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full [“wearied,” (H7646)] of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? (Isaiah 1:11–12)
Gileadi explains, “The question asked at the beginning of verse 11 is answered at the beginning of verse 12: God’s people go to the temple to see God. If they are not there for that purpose, then all else does not count for much. This reveals an appalling paradox: instead of going to see God, his people resemble the dumb animals that were anciently brought for sacrifice, which were unaware of their reason for being there. Instead of making an offering of their whole souls to God—as symbolized by burnt offerings and the shedding of the animals’ blood—his people trudge about the temple’s courts defiling it.”
Those intoxicated by deception make their temple unholy. Obadiah differentiates people who worship in a temple from those who truly ascend Mount Zion. Those who “have drunk upon my holy mountain . . . shall be as though they had not been. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness” (Obadiah 1:16–17).
Parting the veil to receive such glorious blessings is the culminating event of the endowment but so many deny its necessity while claiming to possess its power. This is being ‘partial in the law.’ It is exactly what is meant by “having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). When Joseph asked God which church to join,
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” (JS–History 1:19)
Because no church possessed the fulness, a restoration was needed. Through it Moroni’s message was received, that in the last days all churches, “even every one,” would again have a form of godliness but deny the power (Mormon 8:28–36). Their reforms create forms without power.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. (Romans 13:2)
“Will ye longer deny the Christ or can ye behold the Lamb of God?” Simply put, if we cannot behold the Christ, we deny Christ His rightful place in our lives, and we will be “racked with a consciousness of your guilt” when judgment comes (Mormon 9:3–4). No quantity of temple attendance, church service, or monetary contributions is ever able to demand God’s approval. God is tired of man’s multiplied meetings and unacceptable sacrifices that produce no power and cannot glorify Him.
Bring no more worthless offerings; they are as a loathsome incense to me. As for convening meetings at the [first of the] month and on the Sabbath, wickedness with the solemn gathering I cannot approve. Your monthly and regular meetings my soul detests. They have become a burden on me; I am weary of putting up with them.
When ye spread forth your hands, I will conceal mine eyes from you; though you pray at length, I will not hear—your hands are filled with blood. Wash yourselves clean: remove your wicked deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil. (Isaiah 1:13–16, Gileadi)
These drunk priests and leaders are permitted to occupy the highest positions for a time but eventually they will “come to poverty” (Proverbs 23:21). “I will make drunk her princes,” wise men, captains, “rulers, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake” (Jeremiah 51:57). Alternately, “I will make her princes and her wise men drunk . . . They shall die the second death and not live for the world to come.” A second death is reserved for the unrepentant who “dieth in his sins” (Alma 12:16), still “under condemnation” (Helaman 14:19).
In contrast, the redeemed are blessed, holy, and made “priests of God and of Christ,” the second death having no power over them (Revelation 20:6). Spiritual death causes drunkards to be “cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness” (Helaman 14:18).
An awful death cometh upon the wicked; for they die as to things pertaining to things of righteousness; for they are unclean and no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God; but they are cast out and consigned to partake of the fruits of their labors or their works, which have been evil; and they drink the dregs of a bitter cup. (Alma 40:26)
Wine of pride and delusion leads us to “drink the dregs of a bitter cup.” Dregs are sediments of liquor that subside in the bottom of a vessel, worthless matter that forms the “most vile and despicable part.” This imagery relates to Isaiah’s drunkards, Ezekiel’s muddied waters, and a fountain of filthy water (“the depths of hell”) in Lehi’s dream. Fouled waters prevent both priest and people from receiving the redemption Christ offers so they must pay the bitter price of their sins.
I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I. (D&C 19:16–17)
Refusing pure truth while accepting muddied filth cannot continue forever. They are “heaping up for [them]selves wrath against the day of judgment” (Helaman 8:25), receiving “damnation to their own souls” while drinking “out of the cup of the wrath of God” (Mosiah 3:25–26). Curses leave them scattered, broken, and cast out of God’s favor. When God acts, they will “drink the wine of astonishment” (Psalm 60:3).
All must “awake and arise” to the reality of the tragic mismanagement of what God entrusted to this dispensation.
Let them awake, and arise, and come forth, and not tarry, for I, the Lord, command it. Therefore, if they tarry it shall not be well with them. (D&C 117:2–3)
In spite of so many warnings, the sleeping ‘drunkards’ do not awake to their error. “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth” (Joel 1:5). When this rude awakening finally occurs, it is too late because they are cut off from the “new wine” (new covenant). Having rejected the new covenant and Atonement, they remain in their sins, cut off from His presence. By refusing Christ’s presence, they deny themselves the fulness offered because His manifestation is the privilege of those who truly obtain Melchizedek priesthood power.
If the priesthood does not awake and arise to His call to become sanctified, God must cut them off and cast them out.
I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? (Jeremiah 2:21)
That “they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant . . . not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written” (D&C 84:57) should evoke great concern in all of us, especially those “at ease in Zion” who trust in the arm of flesh for temporal or spiritual security (Amos 6:1). The new covenant leads to Zion.
Christ promises sincere seekers that He will “give thee light”—even further light and knowledge—if they come to Him (Ephesians 5:14). The faithful who hearken to His commandments receive glorious covenant blessings. Having heeded the Lord’s command to ‘awake and arise’ to worthily stand before Him, they are numbered His.
The Book of Mormon’s final verses implore us to “awake and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of Zion; and strengthen thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled” (Moroni 10:31).
The weary earth must be purged of all wickedness and defilement. All that is filthy or impure must either be destroyed or made clean through His atoning blood. God and man coming together in holiness is Zion, the purpose of God’s creation and man’s mortal experience but many instead chose to “profane the holiness of the Lord,” having “married . . . a strange god” (Malachi 2:11).
Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. (Micah 1:2-3)
What provokes God’s wrath? “For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria?” (Micah 1:5). Fortunately, we are told that Jacob’s serious transgression is ‘Samaria.’ Drunkards are in Samaria. From the primitive root shamar (H8104), Samaria means keeping, preserving, watching, or staying awake. So Jacob’s transgression—like all who have yet to become spiritual Israel—is not awakening, not watching, not keeping or preserving the gospel (including covenants, records, and ordinances) in God’s revealed manner. Samaria describes priests failing in their duties to stay awake and be watchful at the tower, bringing God’s fury and wrath.
Just a few months after the LDS church and its members were condemned, God gave a timely parable for the last days that warns of ‘apostles’ who do not stay awake or watch, bringing the church into apostasy.
The apostles were the sowers of the seed; and after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness. (D&C 86:2–3)
Apostles and watchmen are rebuked for not being aware of the enemy’s encroachment. They are distracted by materialistic endeavors to build their kingdom. Because the adversary never rests, there is no time for distraction. The leaders feel so secure in their callings and standing that they do not believe God that there is a need to watch.
Now the servants of the nobleman went and did as their lord commanded them, and planted the olive-trees, and built a hedge round about, and set watchmen, and began to build a tower.
And while they were yet laying the foundation thereof, they began to say among themselves: And what need hath my lord of this tower? And consulted for a long time, saying among themselves: What need hath my lord of this tower, seeing this is a time of peace? Might not this money be given to the exchangers?
For there is no need of these things. And while they were at variance one with another they became very slothful, and they hearkened not unto the commandments of their lord.
[The Lord asks,] Ought ye not to have done even as I commanded you, and—after ye had planted the vineyard, and built the hedge round about, and set watchmen upon the walls thereof—built the tower also, and set a watchman upon the tower, and watched for my vineyard, and not have fallen asleep, lest the enemy should come upon you? (D&C 101:46–50, 53)
When Jesus returned from Gethsemane to find His disciples sleeping, He asked, “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40). A true servant can truthfully proclaim, “I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime and I am set in my ward whole nights” (Isaiah 21:8). ‘Ward,’ from Old English weardian, means to keep guard, watch, protect, preserve, or turn toward. Its Latin cognate is to observe with awe, reverence, or respect. Today many believe they are elect but they “sinned a very grievous sin in that they are walking in darkness at noon-day” (D&C 95:6). While presuming God’s favor, “they grope in the dark without light and . . . stagger like a drunken man” (Job 12:25).
Those who are asleep cannot warn others (Isaiah 56:10–12) so “wake to a remembrance of the awful situation” that awaits transgressors and hold out faithful to the end (Mosiah 2:40–41). His servants “watch to see what He will say unto me” (Habakkuk 2:1) They are awake and aware watchers who become Israel, meaning ‘one who sees God.’ “In that day all who are found upon the watchtower, or in other words, all mine Israel shall be saved” (D&C 101:12). Jacob became Israel by prevailing over flesh, living up to his covenants, and receiving priesthood power. “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed” (Genesis 32:28).
In the last days men choose watchmen for themselves who slumber. They and their ungodliness will be discovered, overturned, and removed. In the Book of Mormon, the word ‘discover’ is used in conjunction with secret abominations that lead people astray. Moroni heavily rebukes latter-day covenant makers for their secret abominations.
Why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain? (Mormon 8:40)
Jesus knew that priestcraft and secret works would cause latter-day Gentiles to “reject the fulness of my gospel” (3 Nephi 16:10, 30:2).
The Lord saw that his people began to work in darkness, yea, work secret murders and abominations. Therefore the Lord said, if they did not repent they should be destroyed from off the face of the earth . . . I [will] discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations . . .
I will bring forth out of darkness unto light all their secret works and their abominations; and except they repent I will destroy them from off the face of the earth; and I will bring to light all their secrets and abominations unto every nation that shall hereafter possess the land. (Alma 37:22–23, 25)
Both political and religious leaders who ‘possess the land’ of America perform secret works of darkness that will be brought to light by those who serve God. If we believe that secret abominations or murders cannot exist among us, know that scripture includes leading astray or leading to destruction in its definition of murder. Satan was “a murderer from the beginning” because he “abode not in the truth” (John 8:44). To hinder any person from obtaining truth or God’s glorious gifts is murder because it destroys the soul and forfeits exaltation.
Through God’s elect servants, truth and light will shine forth again, exposing works of darkness among them. Bringing to light and destroying secret works is required to fulfill His covenant. The Lord will “discover the foundations” of Samaria, referring to works of darkness even among His people. The “works of their brethren” will be revealed specifically to “my people who serve me” (Alma 37:23). Not all will be privy to, interested in, or willing to believe such things. Only those who truly hear and know the voice of the Lord will recognize the message delivered by His true commissioned servants. Few will accept the whole truth.
Isaiah knew that covenant makers in the last days would stray from truth and alter the path to God, but he also knew it must be permitted to bring to pass the Lord’s great and marvelous work. He describes “people of strange lips” who would introduce divergent principles masqueraded as truth, things of a strange tongue (Isaiah 28:11).
All you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things. (Alma 5:57)
The Lord gave this same commandment to those who sought unwarranted priesthood blessings and claimed Israel was holy and righteous merely because they had access to His gospel. Fire destroyed them and 15,000 others who believed the same (Numbers 16). How difficult it is to “recognize the face of a Saint from an enemy to God.” Discerning spirits is one of “the powers and gifts of the everlasting gospel.”
Receiving truth prepares Zion to be established. Divinely ratified ordinances provide the necessary endowments of power, revelation, righteousness, and the Spirit of God to help the true and faithful properly discern and overcome. So “be not drunk with wine . . . but filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
Footnotes and sources can be found HERE.