Meridian Magazine--Come Follow Me Latter-day Saint Podcast

King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in 605 BC and began his first deportation of Jews to Babylon. He chose the elect to deport first, so this group included “the king’s seed, and of the princes.” Among this group was someone who was most likely a teenager at the time, a young man named Daniel and three of his friends. They were all true and faithful to the living God. Daniel, a Jewish prophet, would serve in the courts of Babylon and then Persia until he was more than 80 years old. Today we’ll tell you the rest of the story.

In this episode, we're going to talk about Ezekiel. He lived in that time. We know well, because we know the book of Mormon so well, and that was at the same time that Lehi was preaching, that Jerusalem was about to be destroyed. And now we've studied Jeremiah together, and we know he was preaching at the same time, the same message. In 598, Nebuchadnezzar had the elect of Jerusalem deported, and they were deported, of course, to Babylon, and among that group was Ezekiel. Ezekiel was fairly young at this time, but he came from a priestly family, and it was just the cream of the crop of Jerusalem that was deported with Ezekiel. So that gives you a little time frame for what we're looking at today.

Welcome to Meridian Magazine's Come Follow Me podcast. We are Scot and Maurine Proctor, and we are delighted to be with you again this week, to discuss Jeremiah, chapters 31 through 33, chapter 36-39, and Lamentations 1 and 3 in a lesson entitled, “I will turn their mourning into joy,” and we're thrilled to be in your homes and in your hearts this week.

Jeremiah was foreordained for the tough prophetic job he was called to do. The Lord said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). We often point to those verses as a reminder that the Bible does refer to a pre-mortal existence, but something else strikes us additionally here.
It is as if the Lord said, “Jeremiah, I am going to send you one of the toughest, most heart-rending missions that a prophet can have, preaching to a society who have obstinately doomed themselves, and who will never listen to you, but I have chosen you, because I know you. My eye has been upon you. I’ve seen you from the beginning and I trust you for this mighty, unpopular and sometimes agonizing calling.

Isn’t it amazing that Isaiah’s prophecies date back more than 2,700 years and they are so completely applicable today! No wonder the Lord Jesus Christ commanded the Nephites and the Lamanites:
1 And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.
2 For surely he spake as touching all things concerning my people which are of the house of Israel… (3 Nephi 23:1-2)
Isaiah is speaking to us today and let’s see what he has to say about fasting, keeping the Sabbath Day holy and the last days we are in.