3533 — What Book Is Referred to?
By Editor
Please explain Isa. 29:11. What book is there mentioned? L. V. G. There is no particular book mentioned. You have not read the prophecy carefully. It reads: "And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I can not; for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned." The prophecy is one against the Jews. God had given them line upon line, precept upon precept, vision upon vision by His prophets; and all those visions declaring to them their duty were to them just like a sealed book. Their learned men said, "It is sealed up, and we could not understand it;" and their ignorant men depended upon the learned men. Consequently the nation went on in their utter blindness to destruction. So it was when Jesus came; and so we learn in Matt. 15:8, 9 as compared with Isa. 29:13 that it applied to them in our Lord's day. It is equally applicable down here in our own day. God has given prophecy upon prophecy concerning His second coming, even as He did of His first. He has given two books in His Word which are almost exclusively composed of prophecies concerning His second coming,—Daniel and the Revelation,—one book to be sealed until the time of the end, so that it could not be comprehended in its fullness,—that of Daniel; and the other book an open revelation, and so called. And yet now, as in the Jewish days, if learned men are asked to explain it, they tell us it is sealed and can not be understood; and if the ignorant are asked concerning it, they will say that "I am not learned, and I can not understand it." And yet God has made it an open book to all His children. The prophecy in Isa. 29:11, 12 has no more reference to Mormonism or to the later Mormon revelations than it has to Mohammedanism, or the dreams of esoteric Buddhism.