Isaiah Identifies the Latter-day Archtyrant

It always amazes me how we acknowledge the historical certainty of the rise and fall of nations in the past, but we don’t seem to think that the same fate is an eventuality today.

Sure, men wanted to take over the world back then, but not today.

Sure, there were men trying to take over the world in the last century, but not today.

Sure, the newly appointed (unelected) “President” of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, recently stated: “2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”

To think that we will ever be at the mercy of power-hungry men bent on world domination and global plunder is surely just some kind of crazy conspiracy theory, isn’t it?

I could not more highly recommend Avraham Gileadi’s “The Book of Isaiah: Analytical Translation with Comprehensive Concordance” which you can purchase online, or you can read the translation without the interpretive keys online for free here. Imagine a contemporary translation of Isaiah by an LDS scholar who incorporates the light shed by the Book of Mormon, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other texts that have spoken from the dust in our day.

Consider the following three verses from Gileadi’s translation of Isaiah chapter 10:

12: But when my Lord has fully accomplished his work in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will punish the king of Assyria for his notorious boasting and infamous conceit, …

13: … because he said, I have done it by my own ability and shrewdness, for I am ingenious. I have done away with the borders of nations, I have ravaged their reserves, I have vastly reduced the inhabitants.

14: I have impounded the wealth of peoples like a nest, and I have gathered up the whole world as one gathers abandoned eggs; not one flapped its wings, or opened its mouth to utter a peep.

Here is Gileadi’s commentary on those verses:

Believing he has all power, the archtyrant boasts of his exploits—the pronoun “I” appears seven times, portraying him as an ultra-egotist. His claims show that in the course of committing global genocide he indeed conquers the world, establishing a one-world government or new world order. For him, God’s Day of Judgment is the great day of his power, when the earth’s inhabitants quail before him (cf. Isaiah 37:26–27). He is the “thief in the night” who gathers up the world’s wealth before Jehovah comes to reign on the earth (cf. Matthew 24:42–44; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6; 2 Peter 3:10).

According to Isaiah, these are the things that the archtyrant seeks to do:

1. Do away with the borders of nations
2. Ravage their reserves
3. Vastly reduce the inhabitants
4. Impound the wealth of the people with no resistance

Do away with the borders of nations

Why would doing away with borders be one of the archtyrant’s goals? It’s quite simple actually; erasing borders is the byproduct of consolidating power.

When done by compulsion or force, the laws within those borders are overtaken by the dictates of the archtyrant. The archtyrant is Satanic and cares nothing for the principle of agency, therefore, as governments are trampled, liberty is destroyed.

Ravage their reserves

I think that these words (often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte) say it best:

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” (Attributed in Monarchy or Money Power (1933), by R. McNair Wilson. No primary source for this is quote is known, but it is a statement of fact, nonetheless.)

The United States today used to have a gold-backed currency and now we have a debt-backed currency. The vast majority of our wealth is represented in worthless “IOUs”; truly our reserves have been ravaged by a system of global private central banks.

Vastly reduce the inhabitants

The first question that may come to mind is “Why would this global superpower want to reduce the number of people in the world?” Pondering a few examples from history may shed some light:

King Nimrod

Nimrod had long read in the stars that a child born who would oppose his power and his religion would finally overcome both Acting on the advice of his wise men he built sixty ells high and eighty ells broad into pregnant women were brought to be delivered the nurses were instructed to put to death all that were born but to make handsome the mothers who were brought to bed of daughters After seventy thousand male children had thus perished the angels of heaven turned to the Allmighty besought Him with tears to stay this cruel murder of innocents – Rev. S. Baring Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, John B. Alden, 1884, 170

Was this the adversary’s attempt to prevent the birth of Abraham?

Pharaoh

We all remember the story of Pharaoh who was afraid that the increasing population of the Hebrews was a threat to his power. (Exodus 1:8-21) Was this the adversary’s attempt to prevent the birth of Moses?

Herod

Who can forget Herod’s “Massacre of the innocents” in Matthew 2:16–18? Was this the adversary’s attempt to prevent the birth of Jesus Christ?

Today

I suppose we can ask the same question for today but in a different way: “Who is the adversary trying to prevent from being born in these last days?

With the introduction and evolution (pun intended) of eugenics in the late 1800s, the fear of “overpopulation,” and the push to popularize and defend from criticism relationships that do not produce children, we see a very persistent and deliberate attempt to reduce the world population by any means necessary.

Be careful of those that teach such things because what they cannot achieve through compliance, they will seek by force.

Impound the wealth of the people with no resistance

I suppose that Isaiah’s metaphor of the people as birds is fitting for today. The people sit idly by as their wealth is collected by the archtyrant as easily as a farmer collects eggs from his domesticated chickens.

Unknowing and trusting, the chickens lay their eggs in the nests that have been provided for them; nests that have been strategically set up for ease of collection. Likewise, we work hard to earn a living and then place our ‘money’ into banks that are part of a system that continually devalues that ‘money’ by printing more and more.

Conclusion

Isaiah is somewhat of a “prophet for all times”. His words reflect the cycles of history that repeat themselves and just like times of old, the archtyrant will fall and peace will reign forever, but not before leaving a trail of death and terror in his wake. Isaiah had the last days in mind when he wrote; the days in which we live.

Pay attention to what the archtyrant is doing today, look for those same patterns and reject them, fight against them, and do not be deceived into supporting them.

Do not become like those of old who were deceived by the Assyria of their day who “had seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations” (Helaman 6:38).

The words of Isaiah combined with the Book of Mormon are like an oracle revealing the face of evil in our time and if used with that end in mind, we cannot be led astray.

If you study the patterns of the past, read the prophecies concerning the future and open your eyes to what is happening in the world today, you will see that there is perhaps no better time to get yourself right with God than right now.

Before that day comes, however, the Saints will be put to a test that will try the integrity of the best of them… Then is the time to look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great shifting time, and many will fall. For I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming. (Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor in the First Presidency, May 1868, in Deseret News, 23 May 1931; see also Conference Report, Oct. 1930, p. 58-59)

“I do not know precisely the nature of that test. But I am inclined to think the time is here…” (Gordon B. Hinckley, A City Set Upon a Hill, October 1974 General Conference)