Isaiah 23:5 - Breaking the Everlasting Covenant
Isaiah 23:5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.
What would cause the Lord to make “the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof” (Isaiah 23:1)? I believe that in the view of the Lord, the wickedness of his covenant people is more abominable than the wickedness of the world in general. When the Lord came in the meridian of time, he came among the Jews, who were the “more wicked part of the world...and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God” (2 Nephi 10:3).
There were in the world at the time of the Savior more base and wicked people, as to the wickedness of the world. The Romans were full of idolatry, murders, sexual sins, and every type of wickedness known among men, yet the Lord called the house of Israel more wicked than they. It is clear that to the Lord, sinning against a covenant is worse than any other sin. In D&C 76 we learn that those who are the wicked of the world will eventually be forgiven and receive a glory in a telestial state. But “whoso breaketh this covenant [the covenant of the priesthood] after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come” (D&C 84:41).
The Lord says that the earth is defiled because the covenant people “transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left” (Isaiah 23:5-6, emphasis added).
We Have Broken the Everlasting Covenant
We know the Lord is coming soon. Yet looking around, it is sometimes hard to believe that the world is full of “wickedness and vengeance” (Moses 7:60). The Lord taught his disciples that the people in the last days will be compared in wickedness to those in the days of Noah (see Matthew 24:36-37, and Luke 17:26). We do see a world of wickedness: just turn on the news. Yet it seems so far away, so distant. And when I look around, I see so many good people. However, it is not the wickedness of the world that will cause the Lord to come, it is the wickedness of his covenant people.
The Lord forewarned, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face. Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord. And 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, saith the Lord” (D&C 112:23-26, emphasis added). This was elation given in 1837, more than 180 years ago. If gross darkness covered the minds of the covenant children then, how much darkness covers our minds today?
How have we broken the Everlasting Covenant? In order to understand how we have broken it, we must first understand what it is. Let’s remove our traditional viewpoints and seek answers from the scriptures regarding a definition of this everlasting covenant. When the Lord rewrites the commandments on the tablets given to Moses, he alters them from his original composition. The Lord says, “I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest, save the words of the everlasting covenant of the holy priesthood” (JST Deuteronomy 10:2). The Lord took from the Israelites the everlasting covenant, that part of the priesthood that would bring them into his presence, even the blessings of the Melchizedek priesthood.
The Lord taught, “The power and authority of the higher, or Melchizedek Priesthood, is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the church--To have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and church of the Firstborn, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (D&C 107:18-19, emphasis added). Jesus Christ is the mediator of this new covenant, the new and everlasting covenant, because it is he who seals it upon us. He is the Second Comforter.
Joseph Smith revealed in his inspired translation of the Bible the promises related to the everlasting covenant. “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto thy father Enoch; that, when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself. And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy; And the general assembly of the church of the firstborn shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this is mine everlasting covenant, which I made with thy father Enoch (JST Genesis 9:21-25, emphasis added).
So again, I ask: How have we broken the Everlasting Covenant? We have broken it because we have not brought our people to the face of Christ and restored the covenant, Zion, upon the earth. We as a people have not received the Second Comforter to seal upon us the everlasting covenant. We have not fully embraced this truth, nor have we looked up to God in the manner he has wanted us to. How do we know this? Because Zion has not returned to the earth. We are no closer to creating a Zion people now than we were nearly 200 years ago when Joseph tried to establish a holy city. In fact, I would venture to say we are further from it now than we were in his time. We have entrenched almost every aspect of the world, of Babylon, into our daily lives.
We have vast stores of knowledge or scriptures from all the previous dispositions, yet we hardly read them, and when we do read them, it is only a cursory reading, not in-depth penetration. Most can’t even get through Isaiah, let alone understand his writing. We say we seek after truth, yet when we are taught something outside of approved church curriculum we reject it as looking beyond the mark. We claim our hearts are turned toward our fathers, yet we seek not after the covenant of the ancient fathers, and most don’t even really know what that covenant entails. We do not seek to enter into the presence of the Lord. Those who do seek after or even receive the Second Conforter are often chastened or disciplined by church leaders. We have a priesthood we believe is the full priesthood of God, yet we have not the power nor the faith of our ancient fathers. We have temple ordinances at our fingertips, yet we do not know what they teach nor what they symbolize. We are too often like that woman at the well to whom the Lord said, “Woman..., ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship.... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:21-23).
In short, we are all very good people trying to do very good things. Yet in the Lord’s view, out minds are darkened. Does he see us as a righteous people? Have we each personally received the covenant promise from the Lord? Have we been sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise? Have we beheld the Second Comforter? Where is Zion? Why has it not been established? If not, then, how have we kept the everlasting covenant?