In Chapter 27 of Second Nephi, he drops all pretense of quoting Isaiah as analogy. Instead, he rewrites Isaiah’s material to make it fit his own vision of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. This Chapter contains a wholesale reworking. Through it, Nephi’s overall use of Isaiah becomes more understandable. He takes the liberty of showing us how Isaiah’s material can be made directly applicable to concrete latter-day events. Nephi no longer expects us to merely “liken” the Isaiah material to future events instead he takes the effort to reframe the material into an exact fit of his vision. Nephi does the “likening” of the content himself.
He begins in verse 1: “But, behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles—yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon other lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations—” This puts it directly into our day and our circumstances. The time he describes is now (“the last days”). The audience is us (“the Gentiles”). The message is universal (“even upon all the lands of the earth”). And our overall condition is apostate (“drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations”).
This unflattering assessment of mankind’s state is based upon our spiritual condition, and not our educational, social or engineering accomplishment. Mankind is “drunken” and full of “abominations” because of a failure to practice true worship. Without the ordinances of the Gospel and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it is impossible to worship God. Worship should result in men becoming more like God. It should bring enlightenment, or greater light and truth into the minds of those who worship. It should result in angels ministering to mankind, and the veil separating the heavens being opened to those who worship. Instead of intense study of the theories, philosophies and theologies of men, revelation should bring knowledge of truth. It takes a remarkable amount of effort to maintain our belief in popular falsehoods. We hardly notice, however, because we are used to making that effort.
This is “abominable” because it fails to reconnect mankind to God. Without God, we are orphaned. We are orphaned because of our rejection of our Heavenly Father. We are the prodigals. He is where He always has been, and awaits our return.
In place of knowledge about God, we have wedded His scriptures to philosophy, and redefined Him into a creation of our own minds. Atheists claim man invented God. It is a legitimate criticism, at least of the theologically-defined deity of Historic Christianity. That nonpersonage, “wholly other,” “first cause,” is clearly the creation of man’s imagination.