Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church: Old Testament 2026

In the last days, Zion will return, and Israel will be redeemed—The Messiah will deal prudently and be exalted.

In the last days, the Lord will comfort Zion and gather Israel—The redeemed will come to Zion amid great joy—Compare 2 Nephi 8.

Isaiah speaks as the Messiah—He will have the tongue of the learned—He will give His back to the smiters—He will not be confounded—Compare 2 Nephi 7.

Throughout his ministry, Isaiah spoke of a mighty deliverer. These prophecies would have been especially precious to the Israelites centuries later when they were in captivity in Babylon. Someone who could tear down the walls of Babylon would be a mighty conqueror indeed. But that isn’t the kind of Messiah that Isaiah described in chapters 52–53: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him. … We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:3–4).

By sending such an unexpected deliverer, God taught us about true deliverance. To save us from oppression and affliction, God sent One who Himself “was oppressed, and … afflicted.” Where some expected a lion, He sent a lamb (see Isaiah 53:7). Surely, God’s ways are not our ways (see Isaiah 55:8–9). Jesus Christ frees us not by just opening the prison but by taking our place there. He relieves us from our chains of grief and sorrow by bearing them Himself (see Isaiah 53:4–5, 12). He does not save us from a distance. He suffers with us, in acts of “everlasting kindness” that “shall not depart from thee” (Isaiah 54:8, 10).

The refiner’s fire is not a comfortable place to be. It involves intense heat and repeated hammering. But it is in the refiner’s fire we are purified and prepared to meet God.

By Elder Patrick Kearon

Of the Presidency of the Seventy

Jesus has overcome the abuses of this world to give you power to not only survive but one day, through Him, to overcome and even conquer.

The Messiah will be a light to the Gentiles and will free the prisoners—Israel will be gathered with power in the last days—Kings will be the nursing fathers of Israel—Compare 1 Nephi 21.

The Lord reveals His purposes to Israel—Israel has been chosen in the furnace of affliction and is to depart from Babylon—Compare 1 Nephi 20.

Babylon and Chaldea will be destroyed for their iniquities—No one will save them.

Idols are not to be compared with the Lord—He alone is God and will save Israel.