As the prophet for Jesus Christ and the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Russell M. Nelson gives a special witness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. While standing on the Mount of Olives, adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City, he bears his testimony that “here at the base of the mount, Jesus came to the Garden of Gethsemane. He came to submit to the will of His Father and offer Himself as the sacrifice for the sins and weaknesses, the pains and burdens of all who had ever lived. In that garden, olives had been pressed under great weight to squeeze precious oil from the olives. In like manner, Jesus was literally pressed under the weight of the sins of the world.”
President Nelson expresses that “whenever I come to this great city of Jerusalem, I feel a renewed reverence for Him who made this land holy. Under the direction of the Father, Jesus the Christ was Creator of this and other worlds. He was Jehovah, God of the Old Testament. Jesus was the promised Immanuel, as prophesied by Isaiah.”
The prophecy spoken of by the prophet is in Isaiah 7:14-15: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”
The prophet reflects that “more than 2,000 years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ was born in nearby Bethlehem. As the Only Begotten Son of our Almighty God, Jesus was the only perfect man to walk the earth. In New Testament days, Jesus established His Church, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets.
He healed the sick and caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the deaf to hear. He raised the dead. Yet He allowed His life to be taken to make resurrection a reality and eternal life a possibility for all humankind. It was here in Jerusalem that the Savior spent His final days in mortality.”
President Nelson testifies that the Lord will again return to the Holy Land of Jerusalem, where he is now standing. He quotes Isaiah 40:5 which reads “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
If you read this verse in context with the other verses in chapter 40, you will see that Isaiah is prophesying of the greatness of the coming Messiah. Isaiah 40:1-11 declares: “comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people are grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”
President Nelson finishes his testimony by announcing that “he (Christ) will offer these words: “I was wounded in the house of my friends. I am he who was lifted up. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the Son of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:52). And then every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.
I testify that He is the living Christ, our Lord and Savior, Exemplar, Redeemer, and Judge in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
To view the full testimony of President Russell M. Nelson, please watch the above video or go to: https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/jesus-is-the-living-christ
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Nelson is not a prophet of God.
Joseph Smith was/is a prophet of God.
None after Joseph have been prophets of God who are associated with the LDS corporation (aka “church”).
The Hebrew word almah from which virgin is translated actually means a young woman who is at an age where she can have her first child and not virgin. The translation to virgin came as a result of the translation into the Greek word parthenos which over time the meaning changed to become virgin. By the time of the New Testament the Jewish people could no longer speak Hebrew and only had this Greek translation to go by and thus misinterpreted it to mean virgin. Read in context the original Hebrew meaning of these verses speaks about how northern tribes (Ephraim) had entered into an alliance with Syria and had threatened Jerusalem to force them into an alliance to defeat the threat of the Assyrian empire. God instructs Isaiah to tell Ahaz not to give in to the northern alliance and this scripture is used as a sign of how long it will be before this northern alliance is destroyed. A young woman who has conceived her first child shall give birth and she shall name that child Immanuel and before that child is old enough to know good from bad the northern alliance (two kings) shall be destroyed. This of course relates to when Assyria destroyed and scattered the northern tribes of Israel. Ahaz appealed to Assyria for help which brought this about but to save themselves had to pay tribute to Assyria.
The Hebrew word almah from which virgin is translated actually means a young woman who is at an age where she can have her first child and not virgin. The translation to virgin came as a result of the translation into the Greek word parthenos which over time the meaning changed to become virgin. By the time of the New Testament the Jewish people could no longer speak Hebrew and only had this Greek translation to go by and thus misinterpreted it to mean virgin. Read in context the original Hebrew meaning of these verses speaks about how northern tribes (Ephraim) had entered into an alliance with Syria and had threatened Jerusalem to force them into an alliance to defeat the threat of the Assyrian empire. God instructs Isaiah to tell Ahaz not to give in to the northern alliance and this scripture is used as a sign of how long it will be before this northern alliance is destroyed. A young woman who has conceived her first child shall give birth and she shall name that child Immanuel and before that child is old enough to know good from bad the northern alliance (two kings) shall be destroyed. This of course relates to when Assyria destroyed and scattered the northern tribes of Israel. Ahaz appealed to Assyria for help which brought this about but to save themselves had to pay tribute to Assyria.
The reference to Isaiah 40 is referring to the Jews being freed from exile in Babylon and returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
The Hebrew word “almah” from which the word “virgin” is translated actually means a young woman who is at an age where she can have her first child and not “virgin” as we have become accustomed. The translation to “virgin” came as a result of the translation into the Greek word “parthenos” which over time the meaning changed to become “virgin”. By the time of the New Testament the Jewish people could no longer speak Hebrew and only had this Greek translation to go by and thus misinterpreted it to mean “virgin”. Read in context the original Hebrew meaning of these verses speaks about how the northern tribes (Ephraim) had entered into an alliance with Syria and had threatened Jerusalem to force them into an alliance to defend themselves against the threat of the Assyrian empire. God instructs Isaiah to tell Ahaz not to give in to the northern alliance and this scripture is used as a sign of how long it will be before this northern alliance is destroyed. A young woman who has conceived her first child shall give birth and she shall name that child Immanuel and before that child is old enough to know good from bad the northern alliance (two kings) shall be destroyed. This of course relates to when Assyria destroyed and scattered the northern tribes of Israel. Ahaz appealed to Assyria for help which brought this about but to save themselves had to pay tribute to Assyria.
The reference to Isaiah 40 is referring to the Jews being freed from exile in Babylon and returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. The messiah referred to here is King Cyrus who issued the edict that the Jewish people could return home from exile in Babylon and rebuild the temple.
Isaiah 1- 39 is set at the time Isaiah himself between about 750 and 700BC and refers to the threat of the Assyrian empire and calls the people of the southern kingdoms to repentance lest they be conquered. Isaiah 40-55 suddenly switches to Babylon as being the conqueror and no longer uses Isaiah’s name and it is quite plain that it has been written by priests some 200 years later as an addendum to the original book. It talks of how the Judeans lament for their Jerusalem homeland and then rejoices in the edict of King Cyrus to allow them to return. Cyrus is pronounced as a messiah for bringing this to pass, the only non-hebrew to have received that title. Isaiah 55-66 rejoices in the return to Jerusalem and assumes the rebuilding of the temple is underway and glorifies God for bringing this to pass. Likewise it is written by priests as an addendum the other two sections of the book after around 510BC. It looks forward to the day when Jerusalem will be the centre of God’s kingdom on earth.
To understand Isaiah it has to be read in the context of the historical and political events of the time it was written. The reader also needs an understanding of the Israelite’s faith in their God to bring about their eventual salvation from exile. It is this theme that allows it to be used as a parallel to the Christian belief in a Savior Jesus Christ who will redeem mankind from their sins and allow them to be freed from these sins exiling them from the presence of God and bringing about a joyful return to His presence.