Preface

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Preface
 
Dr. James Fowler in his book, Stages of Faith, asserts that only fifty percent of people of faith critically examine what they believe. Though born into “restored Christianity” – Mormonism, my exit from Mormonism wasn’t a conscious action – it began as a subtle sense of not feeling fulfilled in its theology – something fundamental seemed to be missing.  Indeed, these feelings of incompleteness were confirmed when we consider that God’s Endtime “Elijah” will come to restore all things – Matt 17:11. Essentially, Mormonism as it exists today does not have the fullness of the Gospel that it claims.
 
As a believer in the God of the Bible, I had to either walk away from any notions of God or rebuild my faith. I decided that I needed to discover the message of the Bible for myself apart from religionists who wanted to tell me what to think and believe. So where would one go to start over? It seems to me that a person would start at the beginning, and that beginning is God’s word to Moses – the Torah. The Torah then served as my theological anchor. Any subsequent “truth” would have to harmonize with the Torah. Next, I felt that I needed to evaluate the Book of Mormon to ascertain if it was relevant since it was such a strong aspect of the Mormon faith that I was born into. Admittedly, the Book of Mormon did not substantiate Mormonism, it led me back to the Bible – to the Book of Isaiah. This was essentially my first witness that Isaiah is where my faith journey would go after accepting the Torah. Then, as a second witness, I happened to meet Avraham Gileadi who was promoting his book Isaiah Decoded in Logan, Utah in 2000. My third witness occurred when I fully embraced the Bible as a messianic believer and took the Hebrew name of my great grandfather and father for whom I was named after – Isaiah.
 
Hence, this volume represents a culmination of what I see as the message of the Bible integrating the Law/Torah and Isaiah’s Gospel along with the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament.