God’s prophet wrote, “Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; he will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.’...” (Isaiah 2:3, NKJV), and “Even them I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer...” (Isaiah 56:7).
The message of the Holy Spirit today to all God's people is “Get back to the mount. Get back into his holy presence.” Many are now hearing that call and making time for prayer and seeking God. Others, however, go about their way, too busy with kingdom details to climb the holy hill.
Isaiah saw both the glory of an awakened ministry and the tragedy of blind watchmen, asleep. While some watchmen shake themselves and go back to the mount of God to hear a fresh word from heaven, others will be lost in endless activities and self-advancement.
“His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, they are greedy dogs, which never have enough. And they are shepherds who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own territory” (Isaiah 56:10-11). Isaiah said they got that way — self-centered and preoccupied with the works of their own hands, spiritually dead — because they “forsook the Lord and forgot his holy mountain” (see Isaiah 65:11).
Ministers of God, we had better listen to the warning of the prophet Isaiah when he said, “For the Lord God will slay you, and call his servants by another name” (Isaiah 65:15). The Spirit is raising up an army of ‘mountain men’ who will spend time alone with God, shut up in his holy presence, hearing his voice, getting new vision and returning with joy to deliver “those who wail because of broken spirits” (see Isaiah 65:13-14).
Oh, yes! They shall return but with power and dominion. God’s refining fire is going to awaken new and godly principles in us. For too long, we have been dead to the godly principles needed to save the church from chaos. No longer will the Lord be satisfied with a general good in his house; he now seeks the fire of Christ in the heart.