3.266 Defiled in Three Steps

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose Ye This Day Whom You Will Serve.

When prophets saw into the latter days, do you ever wonder what it was exactly they were looking at or what it was exactly they saw? I think the opportunity inside of reading Isaiah gives us a bit of that answer, although it is in Isaiah-style language, so it can become difficult for us sometimes. But today I think we get a window into one of the things that Isaiah saw, and in turn it gives us an opportunity to flip that window into a mirror and decide what it means for us here on Savory Salt.

We are reading this week Isaiah 13 through 35, and inside of my reading here I came across this in Isaiah 24. These chapters, by the way, lots of the challenges, as we mentioned on the front end of the week. Lots of the destructive pieces Isaiah is describing, both the apostasy as well as the Second Coming, and so we get a lot of these destructive parts of Babylon.

What does it mean for us when we see these verses? And do we just say, 'Oh, yep, everything destructive, therefore we here'? Or is there something we can actually do about it?

That's the kind of ideas I've been having, the questions I've been posing to myself as I am reading this week. Our verse for today is going to come from Isaiah chapter 24, and inside of this Isaiah is going to describe all the way, like even nature itself is going to get to the stage of kind of hiding and being ashamed of sorts, a little bit. And it's going to talk about the earth and the whole earth even mourning and fading away in verse 4.

We're going to look at Isaiah 24 verse 5 for our verse. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Now, did you see the three steps to defiling here that happened?

They transgressed the laws, they changed the ordinance, that's interesting there, and they broke the everlasting covenant. Now, when we kind of talk about what happened in the apostasy, that's pretty much the three steps right there to defiling the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? They change up the laws, they change up the ordinances.

What would that mean for us in our day as we've gone through and are continuing to go through the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ? What can you and I do to make sure that we don't defile the earth through these steps? In our own obedience.

So today, how can I be a little bit more obedient than I was so that that transgression doesn't occur? I'm imperfect. I do have my issues.

That's why we're dealing with daily repentance. That's part of it there. So, there's the first thing that I could do is perhaps turn up my obedience just a little bit and even turn up my own repentance a little bit.

Next, changing the ordinances: perhaps rather than modifying the Church's standard of behaviors and ordinances, perhaps a little bit more alignment with them personally, right? Maybe it's more practice for you in the temple. Maybe it's making sure that when you attend your church meetings you are doing so in the way that the Church has asked us to attend our church meetings.

And then, number three: broken the everlasting covenant. One, perhaps a study of the everlasting covenant and the new and everlasting covenant in Doctrine and Covenants may help there. So perhaps a study to learn and then ultimately to live that new and everlasting covenant as you make those covenants with the Lord through your lifetime and inside of the temple.

My friends, I am grateful for the warning signs that were given through prophets because for me, it kind of reveals for us. Thank you for watching. Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.