In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. (Isaiah 2).
Back in the day this was one of the proof texts that God would raise up the church in all her perfection and the peoples would stream in, hence restore the church to the biblical pattern and hey ho off we all go. And look – there it is ‘in the last days’. A nice one to tuck in to the armoury to show that restoration was the pattern – and how important we are!
Now with teaching on ‘x mountains of influence’ it becomes a Scripture to show the exaltation of the church mountain. (Mountains of influence being a ‘restorationism on steroids’, with a vision for the reconstructionism of the whole of society, sadly with an inevitable nationalism embedded within it.)
To push the Scripture to the millennium could at least make sense, but that whole system likewise is embedded in a nationalism (Jewish) that the opening pages, and all the ensuing pages, of the New Testament seem to put a very strong road block to journeying in that direction.
A few verses – and only a few – later we read that
He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples.They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
It is interesting that for those who take the ‘in the last days the church…’ approach these verses don’t really feature… and when the reconstruction-type teaching is strongly propagated from the nation that has the most weapons of mass destruction, it kinda leaves a gap for me that I think would need one of the most creative bridges to cross!
No I don’t think there is going to be a ‘tallest mountain’, particularly when Jesus came to bring the mountains down.
Reading literally and in our own context we can see that ‘Streaming’ to the mountain is only possible in the age of internet so clearly the last days. We can all Zoom and of course those that host the meeting can mute unwanted voices and therefore control the narrative! I’ve obviously had too much time on my hands, but that is what I think I have heard from the ‘influence from the top’ perspective. Seems at odds with a hope to heal the nations not subdue them and to serve rather than lord it over. Yes, to small and diverse.