ONE great writer, poet, philosopher, and critic has said that mountains are the beginning and ending of natural scenery; but whether his statement is true or not, it voices the sentiment of many hearts. No one who has been brought up among the mountains can ever be wholly content on the prairie. There is beauty in old ocean. There is beauty in the fertile, flower-decked plain or prairie, but the mountains have all this and much more. The majesty, the strength, the grandeur, the glorious splendors of nature, are seen in the mountains as nowhere else.
Photo by E. J. Drake.
WE find little in God’s Word about the valleys or the plains, but much about the mountains. The disease-laden atmosphere of Egypt and sin’s pestilential malaria of Sodom and Gomorrah were nourished in the plain and the valley. Their fertility meant neither beauty nor purity. The mighty gloriousness of God’s character is associated with the rocks and mountains. By these mighty structures of granite strength He appeals to us. By their awful vastness would He impress upon our minds the lessons of eternal import. The whole Bible is filled with these lessons.
THE rocks and mountains speak to us of the strength and stability of God. What is so strong and stable to man as the mighty mountains! What seemingly so near to heaven as the mighty peak whose top pierces through the clouds, crowned with everlasting snow, glittering in eternal sunshine, and yet how strong it is! Greece has fallen many times, but Olympus still stands. The Roman Empire fell and broke into pieces, and kingdom and republic of her shattered fragments have reeled and fallen, but the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Appenines still rear their heads heavenward, as strong as when Rome was a little insignificant kingdom by the Tiber, and the world was yet unconquered.
AND yet, what are the mountains in His sight and to His power, who created the heavens and the earth. Before the mountains were settled He was. Prov. 8:25. “He weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance.” He speaks, they “quake” and “tremble” . He sends forth a mighty wind, and the mountains are riven. He toucheth them, and they smoke. He appears, and they are “overturned by the roots,” and melt and run down at His presence.
“He stood, and measured the earth;
He beheld, and drove asunder the nations;
And the eternal mountains were scattered;
The everlasting hills did bow;
His ways are everlasting.” Hab. 3:6.
ABASHED tho they are at the word and presence of God, they are the strongest material objects that God can use to illustrate His wonderful and essential attributes.
“Thy righteousness is like the great mountains;
And Thy judgments are a great deep.”
So high do the mountains rise that the eye can not see their summits, so deep that their base is below all human excavation—measureless below and above, strong with the strength of God. What a picture to man are they of the righteousness and justice of our Maker and Preserver. A few men in the mountains have been sufficiently strong with the mountain’s strength to withstand a whole army. How strong may he be who makes the Maker of the mountains his rock of defense.
THE mountains were places of communion with God. It was from such communion with his Maker in the Mount of God that Moses was fitted to go forth and lead out from Egypt’s low dark plains the Israel of God, who were brought to the same mountain to learn the same lesson which he had learned, of man’s littleness and God’s strength. When Elijah, weary, disheartened, fled from the hate of Jezebel, he hastened to the Mount of God. When Jesus was upon earth, how many times do we find Him entering and ascending the mountains with His disciples, or generally entirely alone, to pray to His Father, sometimes continuing all night in prayer to God, that He might be strong for next day’s work.
THE mountains and rocks were places of revelation. It was on Mount Moriah that Abraham learned the lesson that God was the great eternal Provider. It was from Mount Sinai of Horeb’s range that God revealed His unchangeable law to the sinner. It was in Mount Zion that God revealed His goodness, His mercy, His faithfulness to His children of old. It was on a mountain that Jesus spoke the wonderful Sermon. It was on a mountain that His transfiguration took place, and He was revealed in the glory of His second coming. It was on a mountain that His sorrow for lost sinners was2revealed. It was on a mountain that His great sacrificial love for the world reached its climax. It was on a mountain that His everlasting victory over sin was demonstrated when He ascended on high, triumphant over all of earth’s attractions and powers. And when He comes again as King of kings and Lord of lords, to reign in His eternal kingdom, His feet will first rest on the mountain where His tears were shed and from which He ascended forever triumphant.
THE mountains are great founts of living water. The dwellers in the extensive prairie have but the impure surface wells or the brackish water from their own cisterns, unless they have struck deep enough into earth’s bosom to tap a living stream from some far away mountains. The dweller in the high mountains, or adjacent thereto, drinks of the pure, cool waters which descend from the eternal and never-failing supply of snow at the top. So God reproves His people for leaving the cool snow waters of Lebanon, symbol of His Gospel, and drinking from the impure waters in the broken cisterns of men, symbols of idolatry. There are brooks forever descending out of the mount of God at which His children may drink and be refreshed.
THE rocks and mountains are symbols of protection.
“As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
So Jehovah is round about His people
From this time forth, and forevermore.”
Christ Jesus is the Rock cleft for us in which we may hide from peril and danger,
“A hiding-place from the wind,
And a covert from the tempest,
As streams of water in a dry place,
As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
“For their rock is not as our Rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges.”
“Trust ye in Jehovah forever;
For in Jehovah, even Jehovah,
Is an everlasting Rock.”
“Ascribe ye greatness unto our God,
The Rock, His work is perfect.”
O THE mountains of God, how full are they of His precious lessons,—His mighty power, His strong, enduring love, His well-spring of joy and peace, the revelation of His glory, the blessedness of His companionship, the surety of His protection, the faithfulness of His promises. But He is stronger than the mountains. Yea, heaven and earth may fail, the sun and moon may wax dim, but He faileth not; His years have no end. And, praise His holy name,
“They that trust in Jehovah
Are as Mount Zion,
Which can not be moved,
But abideth forever.”
