Conditions of the Last Days
Idolatry — an ancient plague, a modern calamity.
The following is an address given in a Ward Sacrament meeting, a congregational service of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, delivered Sunday 23 July 2023.
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In thinking of the signs of the Saviour’s return our minds no doubt turn to the events or occurrences which are to signal His imminent coming. While fascinating and important it is not of occurrences that I will speak today, but rather to conditions which will exist among the people in the last days.
There are many places in the scriptures where we might find greater clarity around the conditions preceding His coming, but until recently I would not have thought to turn to Isaiah. And yet we of all people have the most reason to give serious consideration to Isaiah’s words. The Saviour during His visitation to the Nephites, commanded them to search the words of Isaiah, because he spoke of all things concerning both the house of Israel and the Gentiles, saying:
And all things that he spake have been and shall be, even according to the words which he spake.
Centuries earlier, Nephi transcribed thirteen full chapters of Isaiah, carving them by hand into metal plates. Having done so he confesses that he loves the words of Isaiah, but that his people don’t understand them.
For whom then are they written?
Nephi lists three groups of people who will understand the words of Isaiah:
Those filled with the spirit of prophecy
The Jews, or those taught after the manner of the Jews
And finally, the children of men in the last days
Nephi explains:
… that in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfilled men shall know of a surety, at the times when they shall come to pass.
… for I know that they shall be of great worth unto them in the last days; for in that day shall they understand them; wherefore, for their good have I written them.
Isaiah’s words are not to be understood only in the context of the Ancient kingdom of Israel. They are a type and a shadow of things which will be fulfilled again in the last days. Obviously the greatest light and knowledge is available to those who can fill all of Nephi’s criteria, but by virtue of living through the days of their fulfilment, we have as great an opportunity to understand them as did the Jews to whom they were first given.
What then does Isaiah have to teach us?
In Isaiah chapter 2, the first chapter which Nephi transcribes, we read of the Lord’s house being established in the tops of the mountains. An occurrence, an event, a familiar one, fulfilled in the opening of this dispensation. Isaiah then goes on to describe a condition:
Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
It’s tempting to consider this relevant only to an ancient and superstitious people, and not in any but the most abstract of ways, relevant to us in the modern age. We must first consider, however, the Lord’s own word on the matter, expressly dictated in this last dispensation, where in the Doctrine and Covenants He said:
They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol…
Idolatry in ancient times
In considering whether it’s really possible that idolatry, as in times of old, could also be the folly of the modern times which would bring about the calamity foretold by ancient and modern prophets, it may be prudent to consider who precisely the old gods were which plagued Israel anciently and brought calamity upon their kingdom. Of all the gods in the Phoenician and Canaanite pantheon, there were three who chiefly troubled Israel.
The first is Baal.1 He was the god of increase, the god of prosperity. He was also the god who liberated Israel from the rigid and prescriptive morality of Jehovah. Baalim, the plural of Baal is often used to refer to him, for Baal could be whatever one wanted him to be, with him they could believe whatever felt right. It was in his high places Israel began to seek material prosperity, each in whatever way suited them.
The second is Ashtoreth.2 She took the pursuit of prosperity and added to it pleasure. With the door cracked open by the moral relativism of Baal, Ashtoreth breaches the door, reshaping morality entirely as she enters in. It was in her groves that pleasure and self-fulfilment became their highest ambition.
The third is Molech.3 With prosperity and pleasure now Israel’s principal concerns, children are no longer an heritage of the Lord, but barriers to the worship of the new gods. Molech consumes what Israel no longer prizes or protects. And in their fallen state, Israel caused thousands of her children to pass through his fires.4
Is it possible that the old gods who troubled Israel, could be relevant to the idolatry which would again plague the Lord’s people in the last days?
Idolatry in modern times
Thirty five years ago, President Ezra Taft Benson warned not to be:
… caught up in materialism, one of the real plagues of our generation…
—President Ezra Taft Benson, To the Single Adult Brethren of the Church, April 1988
Nearly thirty years ago, Elder Neal A. Maxwell observed:
As prophesied, ethical relativism is now in steep crescendo: “Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god…” (D&C 1:16).
—Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness, April 1995
The materialism of Baal has long been among us, and with few now willing to be bound to any absolute truth or morality, they feel ‘freed’ instead to ‘live their own truth.’
Nearly forty years ago, Elder Russell M. Nelson, lamenting the terrible loss of life resulting from war, lamented further still over:
… a new war that annually claims more casualties than the total number of fatalities from all the wars of [the United States]… This war, labeled “abortion,” is of epidemic proportion and is waged globally. Over fifty-five million abortions were reported worldwide in the year 1974 alone… In some metropolitan areas, there are more abortions performed than live births.
—Elder Russell M. Nelson, Reverence for Life, April 1985
Though shockingly modest after five decades of relentless progress in the field of reproductive health, Elder Nelson’s figures remain more than adequate to conclude that once again, Molech stands ready to consume those whom our society no longer prizes. Israel sacrificed her children in their thousands, the Gentiles in their millions.
Of these ancient gods, however, it may be the spirit of Ashtoreth which was to trouble the Gentiles most. In Nephi’s vision of the last days, the angel says:
… Look, and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil.
And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil… which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.
Consorting with the whore
Ashtoreth was the goddess of prostitutes, she was referred to anciently as the great whore. Even as Nephi describes two churches in the last days, John describes a vision of two women. The one is given as a heavenly sign, a woman with child, travailing in birth.5 The sign of the church, labouring to deliver the Kingdom of God on the earth. The other he describes as the great whore:
With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication…
John appears to imply that the leaders of the nations of the earth in the last days will be unfaithful to their constituents, consorting instead with the great whore whom Nephi describes as the church whose founder is the devil.
There is a tendency sometimes to spiritualise these things, by which I mean consider them only as abstractions, as concepts which exist only on an intellectual plane. But the church of the Lamb of God is not an abstraction. It has an aspect which is manifested materially in the physical realm, in the form of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Is it possible, that in a similar way, the church of the devil might also be made manifest in the material world in the last days? That as it was anciently when Ephraim became confederate with Judah’s enemies,6 that likewise the nations of the Gentiles might be betrayed by their leaders who conspire with those who seek the destruction of the Lord’s covenant people?
Actually this is an express sign of the times into which the Latter-day saints have unique insight. Moroni, speaking directly to the gentiles in the last days, warns them that “murderous combinations shall get above [them].” Speaking of these combinations, which are “built up by the devil,” he says:
Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation…
What of this sign then, has it been fulfilled, or do we still wait for its fulfilment?
Thirty five years ago, President Ezra Taft Benson stated:
I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society. It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before… A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world.
—President Ezra Taft Benson, I Testify, October 1988
But it is not only from above us that oppression will come, as Isaiah says:
… the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour…
It is not only conspiring leaders who consort with the harlot, but as John says, all:
… the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Made drunk with her wine
Ashtoreth, as it happens, was also known as the patron goddess of taverns. And though Christ described His doctrine as new wine, it is with the harlot’s doctrine that the inhabitants of the earth in those days will have been made drunk.
In the parable of the tares, the master sows good seed, the good word. But by night an enemy sows tares amongst the wheat. A noxious plant which when young is nearly indistinguishable from wheat, tares bear fruit which when consumed produce an effect like unto intoxication.7 Doctrine and Covenants declares the connection plainly:
… That great church, the mother of abominations, that made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, that persecuteth the saints of God, that shed their blood—she who sitteth upon many waters, and upon the islands of the sea—behold, she is the tares of the earth…
Before we go further, however, it is necessary to stress that there is and must always be a distinction between the person and their behaviour. These things are easily and sometimes wilfully conflated, to the point of serious spiritual harm. For if the gap that once existed between a sin and the person who sinned it should ever be erased, then love for any person will be compelled to include love for their behaviour or else be counted as hate. But Isaiah also foresaw that in the last days we would do precisely this:
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
The perilousness of tying ourselves to our sins, of making them an immutable characteristic of our identities, cannot be overstated. For all people are bidden to the wedding feast, all are invited to come unto Him and partake of His salvation. But we cannot bring Babylon’s wares in with us. We can tie ourselves to our God and His Christ or we can tie ourselves to our sins, we cannot do both. Lest attempting to do so we find ourselves like the man which had not on the wedding garment, and the King seeing him:
… saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither
not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
I have said already, many things which are unpopular in the world, but popularity is a quality with which Brigham Young hoped the Latter-day Saints would never be afflicted, instead he said:
The people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them… we must be looked upon as ignorant and unworthy… and be hated by the world. What is the reason of this? Christ and Baal cannot become friends…
—Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Aug. 16, 1868
The wine of her iniquity
With this in mind, what then is the doctrine of the goddess Ashtoreth? What are the tares, or the words which intoxicate? What is the wine with which John warned, all the inhabitants of the earth would be made drunk?
Anciently the worship of Ashtoreth centred primarily around sex. Every kind of sex except the kind that promotes family. Her doctrine was licentiousness, fornication, adultery, and homosexuality.8 She undermined the family, seeking to destroy the titles of mother and father.9
More than forty five years ago, President Spencer W. Kimball warned that:
We hear more and more each day about the sins of adultery, homosexuality, and lesbianism… It is the sin of the ages. It was present in Israel’s wandering as well as after and before… We do not hesitate to tell the world that the cure for these evils is not in surrender. “But let us emphasize that right and wrong, righteousness and sin, are not dependent upon man’s interpretations, conventions and attitudes. Social acceptance does not change the status of an act, making wrong into right. If all the people in the world were to accept homosexuality, … the practice would still be… sin.”
—President Spencer W. Kimball, The Foundations of Righteousness, October 1977
Among Ashtoreth’s abilities she claimed also the power to change men in to women and women in to men. Her priesthoods consisted of men who dressed as women, and men who surgically altered themselves to appear as women.10 Her attacks went all the way back to the foundations of Eden, separating first what God had joined, she then sought to erase male and female, as she warred all the more furiously against Him in whose image they are made.
Nearly fifty years ago, President Kimball also stated that:
Some people are… attempting to destroy the concept of masculinity and femininity. More and more girls dress, groom, and act like men. More and more men dress, groom, and act like women… God made man in his own image, male and female made he them… Certainly, men and women who would change their sex status will answer to their Maker.
—President Spencer W. Kimball, God Will Not Be Mocked, October 1974
Foreknown and forewarned
These things were declared in the beginning and repeated throughout the ages. Knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth11 the Lord revealed them again, and not thirty years ago repeated them through the voice of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve when they issued to all the world a proclamation.
They solemnly proclaimed that male and female are created in the image of God; that gender is an essential characteristic of eternal identity and purpose; that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God; and that in that relationship only, are the sacred powers of procreation to be employed. They then warned:
The Family: A Proclamation to the World
… that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.
Surely it is even as the preacher exclaimed:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
We live in the days of the fulfilment of these signs. This wine is administered to us daily, a sacrament in which all are expected to partake. It is administered through our media and popular culture; in our schools and workplaces; through peers, colleagues, corporate brands and not-for-profits; many churches have exchanged the doctrine of Christ for the doctrine of Babylon; it is even enforced through legislation. It has gotten above us.
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Awake and arise
Like the virgins, we have slumbered and slept,12 but now, as Moroni warns and as the Lord commands, it is time to awake to a sense of our awful situation.13 And in our wakened state, let us not be like the unwise virgins who went to them that sell,14 to the merchants of the earth.15 Babylon does not sell what we will desperately need to escape the coming calamity. Those who reside in Babylon, or those in whom Babylon resides, receive Babylon’s reward:
… I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon.
Isaiah saw our day, he saw many things that now are. He saw our fall into idolatry and immorality, that the people would each oppress another.16 He saw that our political leaders would lead us into error,17 that oppression would replace justice.18 He saw that evil would be called good and good evil,19 and that the wicked would be justified for reward.20 That people would declare their sin as Sodom and hide it not.21 He saw that we would shut our eyes, ears, and hearts to spiritual wisdom,22 so that even as the north wind carried our destruction ever closer, we would remain blissfully oblivious:
… the harp, … and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.
Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
But the Lord would not have us ignorant. In speaking to many of these issues nearly thirty years ago, Elder Boyd K. Packer proclaimed:
When we speak plainly of divorce, … gender identity, … abortion, … we are thought by some to be way out of touch or to be uncaring. Some ask if we know how many we hurt when we speak plainly. Do we know of marriages in trouble, … or of those confused about gender? Do we know? Do we care? Because we do know and because we do care, we must teach the rules of happiness without dilution, apology, or avoidance. That is our calling.
—Elder Boyd K. Packer, The Father and the Family, April 1994
The Lord’s love for us is not in question, His hand is stretched out still. It is this love which drives Him and His servants to continue to risk the shame, scorn, and hatred of the world in raising the warning voice. For as surely as what Isaiah saw has been fulfilled, the remainder of his words must also be fulfilled. Things that yet will be. He saw homelessness and famine,23 he saw deprivation and disease,24 and a devastating war that comes with speed swiftly.25
There is hope in Christ
Paradoxically though, it is precisely these things which should fill us with great hope and eager anticipation. For if these great and terrible things have been, are, and surely will be, then the great and glorious things he foresaw must surely come to pass also. And if we can hold out a little longer, if we can love God more than prosperity and pleasure, if we can flee Babylon and escape to Christ, then we can be made partakers also, for:
In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.
And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: …
The day and hour knoweth no man,26 but all about us these and many other signs are being fulfilled, so that as the fig tree which putteth forth leaves, if we have eyes to see, we may know that His coming is near, even at the doors.27
Regardless of the time remaining, however, these questions posed by Elder Oaks nearly twenty years ago are as relevant as they ever have been:
What if the day of His coming were tomorrow? If we knew that we would meet the Lord tomorrow—through our premature death or through His unexpected coming—what would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we discontinue? What accounts would we settle? What forgivenesses would we extend? What testimonies would we bear? If we would do those things then, why not now?
—Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Preparation for the Second Coming, April 2004
Your brother in Christ,
The Quiet Dissident
Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, Front Line, p. 39–69
Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, Front Line, p. 73–92
Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, Front Line, p. 95–113
By homosexuality, I mean the act.
I do not mean the attraction to a person of the same sex.
Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, Front Line, p. 73–92
Jonathan Cahn, The Return of the Gods, Front Line, p. 117–141