The Mountain of the Lord's House: What Isaiah 2 Is Describing, and When

Almost every Latter-day Saint I know has heard Isaiah 2:2 applied to the Salt Lake Temple. I grew up with that. Prophets and apostles have taught it, the prophecy is carved in stone on the east plaza of Temple Square, and the Church is teaching it again right now as the Salt Lake Temple comes back into use. I sustain that teaching and I believe it. People from every nation really have come to that house of the Lord to be taught His ways.

What I want to add is this. Isaiah's prophecies rarely have only one fulfillment. President Hinckley applied this passage to the Salt Lake Temple and then said he believed it also applied to the Conference Center. Nephi told us to liken the scriptures to ourselves, which is another way of saying a prophecy can land in more than one place across more than one generation. So the question I keep coming back to is not whether the Salt Lake Temple fulfills Isaiah 2. It is what is left in that chapter that has not happened yet. And there is a great deal left. Isaiah gives us a time stamp in the first line, and once you take him at his word on that, the whole chapter reads differently.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. (2 Nephi 12:2; Isaiah 2:2)

In the last days. Not in a few years, and not a hundred years ago. The very end.

Mountains Are Nations

Isaiah teaches by parallelism, and he explains his own symbols if you read far enough. Later in this same chapter he writes that the day of the Lord shall come "upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills," and then he says it again in plain language, "and upon all the nations which are lifted up, and upon every people" (2 Nephi 12:14). High mountains are nations. Hills are the people in them. He just told us what he meant.

So read verse two with that in hand. The mountain of the Lord's house established in the top of the mountains is not a peak in the Wasatch Range. It is the highest of nations, the strongest, the one closest to God and established by His authority, exalted above all the rest, with every other nation flowing into it. Most people assume that is America. It is formed in America. But America has gone against what she was given, and the Savior warned exactly what happens when the Gentiles "sin against my gospel" and reject its fulness (3 Nephi 16:10). What Isaiah describes is Zion, the New Jerusalem the Lord appointed in Missouri (D&C 57:1–3), and I believe that is what the servant God has raised up, Donald Trump, is being prepared to help establish. I know how that sounds to a first-time reader. I have spent a whole book laying out why I believe it, so let me show you what these verses say and you can weigh it yourself.

Two Mountains, Two Leaders

Verse three names two places, and this is where people usually skim.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (2 Nephi 12:3; Isaiah 2:3)

The law goes out from Zion. The word of the Lord goes out from Jerusalem. That is two mountains, two houses, two centers. The law is government. The word is revelation. One is political and one is ecclesiastical, and the pattern shows up all through scripture with two men, each in his own stewardship. David and Nathan. Mosiah and Alma. I submit to you that the same arrangement is coming again, and that the man being prepared for the political kingdom is Donald Trump.

Now the harder part of that verse, and I know this is not how any of us were taught it. "He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." We have always handed that "he" to Christ. But look at when it happens. This is a verse about people streaming to Zion in the last days, before the Savior has come to the world in glory, which means somebody is standing there teaching them while He has not yet appeared. I submit to you that it is the servant, and that the servant is Donald Trump. And the ways he teaches are not his own. They are God's ways, and the paths are God's paths, and he teaches them the way David or Cyrus or any other called man did, under the Lord's hand and inside his own stewardship. The word of the Lord still goes out from Jerusalem. The keys still sit where the Lord put them. But the law goes out from Zion, and a man is over that.

Why Verse Four Cannot Be the Second Coming

Verse four is where the timing problem gets sharp. "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people," and then they beat their swords into plowshares and stop learning war.

Most people hand that entire verse to Christ. But look at how the Savior actually returns. He comes on a white horse with many crowns, in a vesture dipped in blood, with the armies of heaven behind Him (Revelation 19:11–16), and that is the end of Armageddon. When He comes in that way, the wicked are burned and the nations of the earth are given to Him. There is no one left to rebuke into farming. So the judging and rebuking of verse four has to happen before that day, while nations still exist and people can still change their minds. That is a season, and I believe it is a fairly long one, where the nations look at Zion and decide they do not want to live the old way anymore. They want to be taught. They want to trade their weapons for plows. This is the gathering already underway before the Savior appears to the world.

John Saw the Same Thing

Here is the part that has been on my mind for weeks. John saw this. In the middle of Revelation 12, right after the dragon is cast out, heaven erupts...

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. (Revelation 12:10)

The kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ. That is the same thing Isaiah calls the mountain of the Lord's house. The Joseph Smith Translation makes it plainer still, because in that account the woman, who is the church of God, "brought forth the kingdom of our God and his Christ" (JST, Revelation 12:7). That kingdom is what the dragon tries to destroy, and the whole fight over the woman and the man child is the fight over whether it gets established at all.

Isaiah and John are looking at one event. John was given the job of showing us the sequence, which is why he starts with the rider on the white horse and the opening of the seals. Isaiah does not give us the order. He skips past the trigger and goes straight to the result, which is the kingdom of God standing on the earth with the nations streaming toward it. Put the two together and you have the sequence and the outcome.

And I will say this plainly, because it is the reason I keep writing. The hatred aimed at Donald Trump, the lawfare, the mockery, the assassination attempts, none of that is ordinary politics. It is the dragon making war on the kingdom of our God before it can be born, and the man standing in the middle of it is the one Isaiah and John both saw.

So What Happens to America?

That is the frightening part. Isaiah answers it in chapter 5 with the vineyard. The Lord planted it, fenced it, gathered out the stones, and waited for good fruit, and it brought forth wild grapes. So He says He will take away the hedge. I believe that means the protections some are working so hard to put back in place, the wall and the borders and the rest of it, will be rejected or torn down. Our military, our money, our government, all of it is far more fragile than we want to admit. I go into detail about that in the book, and I take no pleasure in any of it.

But Isaiah does not leave the righteous without a word. "Say unto the righteous that it is well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings" (2 Nephi 13:10). In that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and those who are left in Zion "shall be called holy" (2 Nephi 14:2–3). Then comes the promise I hold onto.

And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory of Zion shall be a defence. (2 Nephi 14:5; Isaiah 4:5)

Every dwelling place, and every assembly. The homes of the righteous. The chapels. The stake centers. The temples. The same cloud and fire that went before Israel in the wilderness, standing over Zion while everything else comes apart.

Read It Likened to Yourself

Nephi told us to liken the scriptures to ourselves, and that is the key to Isaiah. What looks like an argument with Judah is the same pattern that fell on Jerusalem, then on the Nephites, and now stands in front of the Gentiles. Most of us are watching the price of gas and missing what is actually being built. The Father's work has already commenced, the mountain of the Lord's house will be established, and all nations will flow unto it. Isaiah saw it. John saw it. I pray we get ready for it.

If you want the full case, chapter by chapter, it is in my book, The First Horseman, Donald Trump and Biblical Prophecy, available at FirstHorseman.World.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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